These Scars Have Stories to Match
by Ziven
Summary: Seto Kaiba had faced a number of situations, all of them unorthodox, but they had been based on dueling and dueling was a thing that Seto Kaiba did well. His focus shifted to the glass, to his reflection, and he reached out to touch it; now he was a gaunt, waif of a figure. Seto could see the veins press up against his skin, crying for nourishment. It made him think of the Walkers.


This was supposed to, at one point, have been my second entry for the YGO fanfiction contest. Unfortunately, I have not had internet all week and therefore I'm ineligible to submit it. Regardless, I worked really hard on this and although it's rough, I thought I'd post it to see what feedback I could get. It's long. _Loooooooong_, and I apologize if your reading stamina just isn't up to this challenge. My pairing for this round was Seto x Marik, and I have to tell you that I'm not quite sure if I delivered it.

This is a crossover between YGO and Walking Dead, although I'm afraid that this story doesn't feature any of the comic's characters. It's more so an AU, with the YGO characters placed in the Walking Dead Universe.

Thanks to all of you who make an attempt to get through this - I very much appreciate the effort. It's an interesting story, nonethless, and I hope that you all can at least appreciate the idea behind it. Thank you again!

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**Those Scars Have Stories to Match**

Seto shielded his eyes, and shook his head in fear as he gazed out over Domino.

The view from the near-top of the KaibaCorp Tower showed him the terrors of the night before laid bare, the attempts of others to eke out a living in the dead city. Much of the city was, for all of the sun's brightness, shrouded in the foreboding darkness of the wreckage still left standing. Not barely a minute had passed and there were already signs of sadness: a new body, fresh with dripping, red blood smeared atop it, laid in an intersection ten blocks away. He didn't to look closer, and turned away from his telescope in disgust. Images of torn sinew and ripped flesh came to mind and Seto Kaiba thought, for just a moment, that he would be sick. Closing his eyes to the scene below, and knowing that there would be others had he searched for them, he allowed the wave of nausea to pass in silence.

"Mokuba," he called softly.

His younger brother was often with him in these troubling times, never straying far from his sight unless ordered. Even in the morning, when Seto made his trip to search the city for survivors through the wide glass panels of his office, Mokuba roused himself without any prompt and followed. Though he had never asked his brother to do so, he was glad; a part of him was comforted by his presence, even if they had never spoken about it.

"What?" was Mokuba's gruff reply. "Someone out there?"

For just a moment the voice grew lighter, hopeful, and Seto decided to relish that moment. They were so few and far between, and Mokuba had not hoped for anything vocally in a very long time.

"No," he answered. He would not lie to his brother, would not allow that positivity to root itself so that it would become disappointment. "Another dead. It'll turn soon. Too close for comfort. I want the guard more alert this morning. Report back."

"Yep."

As Mokuba turned away to move toward the elevator, Seto wince. For him it was difficult, nearly impossible, to keep his composure, with his younger brother present. When Mokuba moved, there were all sorts of sounds: the clattering of weapons against one another - guns, knives, aid kits, a walkie-talkie - things that no nineteen-year-old should have seen in person, let alone have to touch and use.

When the elevator doors closed and the gentle _ping_ of the elevator told Seto that his brother was out of sight and earshot, knowing that he was truly alone, he allowed a single sob to escape his throat. To the security cameras, it could have been anything from Seto doubling over from a bout of coughs to clearing his throat. No one had to know.

Approaching the glass that made up the front wall of his office, he took another long, hard look. Several miles in the distances he could see a small plume of smoke. There were a few other groups surviving, as well, and while that was comforting to know it was also devastating. The next morning that group could be finished, bodies lying in the streets. There was no denying that KC Tower was the best shelter in the city, and he couldn't have imagined that there were many more groups that hadn't been absorbed into his own.

His focus shifted to the glass, to his reflection, and he reached out to touch it. Seto Kaiba was a gaunt, waif of a figure. Even as he stretched his fingers he could see the veins press up against his skin, crying for nourishment. The malnutrition made him think of the body in the street, of the others—

of the Walkers.

It was sickening, the thought along enough to cause his stomach to churn. Lips pursed, body rigid, he could not help but recall him to that very moment.

The reports had begun pouring in from the West first. Roaming monsters that ate flesh. Stories that had spread online comprised the majority of them, and Seto had thought it no more than a hoax, child's play. After all, even he could manipulate coding to support a recurring story if he wished to. At the time, it had seemed so obvious that the series of short, undetailed reports were a simple prank. The West were obsessed with the idea of it, after all, and Japan too had its own cinematic horror history.

Life went on, and for a while the reports were ignored.

Then came the announcement, sent to the phones of several citizen of Japan, or so it was implied: the borders were being cut off. Sea, air, land, without much more warning. This, too, Seto had ignored, until a television broadcast repeating very much of the same message aired on television. By that time, Seto was alert and listening, and he had also been able to record several radio broadcasts as well. The messages were repeated for three days, encouraging citizens to continue as normal until further notice and apologizing for the inconvenience.

Mokuba traveled with him at all times, then, and he traveled with at least one armed guard as well, and travel he had. It was important, during times like these, to observe the people to see what direction the country was going in; a lesson that, of all people, Gozaboro had taught him. As he had expected, the people of Domino had been unsure of what to do with themselves, many of them showing their nervousness in the way that they had walked to and fro, the guarded looks upon their faces when they traveled. They had seemed to go to work as usual, as commanded, and KaibaCorp itself had continued domestic business to the best of its ability.

Seto Kaiba had faced the number of situations, all of them unorthodox, but they had been based on dueling and dueling was a thing that Seto Kaiba did well. In spite of those dangers, however, he had never wavered, never felt as though there had been nothing to contribute, to change. Never had he felt as uneasy as he had then.

Japan had been "quarantined", to put it lightly, and while paranoia had gripped its citizens they were not to be estimated. Particularly in Domino, after four months life had simply begun to regain its typical pattern. In the streets, jokes began to emerge concerning the world being too contaminated for the likes of their country.

He had not been raised to follow rumors and while they tended to hold a modicum of the truth, Seto had not had the time to waste on trying to find a needle in haystack, as it were. He followed his gut and he followed the flow of money. Both had proven themselves worthy assets, and the latter was often the cause of trouble.

And that was why, when his money stopped holding the value of persuasion - when his _money_ had been refused in an attempt to parlay his and Mokuba's names onto an permitted aircraft and pilot' listing - he'd become worried.

"Sir, if we see your aircraft in our space you will be shot down," he'd been told.

Against his better judgment, Seto decided to watch and listen to the announcements he'd recorded again, and furthermore to dredge up the reports about 'monsters' that he'd seen online. After all, this would not have been the first time the unexplainable had occurred.

Yuugi and the others had tried their best to force him into believing that Millennium Item and the Heart of the Cards hogwash, and had nearly succeeded. No matter how he had looked at it, the crazy Egyptian crap hadn't fazed him. No matter how well they managed to hack the display system for the holographics, no matter how good their acting had been, Seto Kaiba had maintained his position as the voice of reason. There had been no denying, however, that something strange had been going on that time, and series of madmen had risen to assert their dominance on Domino.

At the time, he had thought - _perhaps this is related_. Much later, he would admit to himself that it had been a wish, a desire, a hope; for if it were related to the incidents he had lived through, he would have known without a doubt that he could have survived the ensuing madness.

The confidence in his reasoning had died while searching for the reports. All Western channels had been clocked on television and online.

Such a thing would not stop Seto Kaiba, however, and after several hours of cracking he had managed to come across an old report from six months prior, with a video attached: cellphone footage of a vaguely humanoid creaturing tearing pieces from a fresh carcass, much like something out of a horror film. The details had been too low quality to determine the authenticity.

He could not have made an assumption based on such little concrete data. Government silence aside, the video could have easily made or planted by anyone. There had been no mentions of similar footage in any other of the articles that he'd been able to pull up.

And still, his stomach had churned and felt uneasy.

One evening that Seto remembered with clarity, Mokuba had asked to sleep in the same room with him, but refused to give a reason other than he had really wanted to. It had been safe to say, at that point, that Mokuba shared his apprehensions; there could not have been any other reason for a seventeen-year-old to make such a request. That evening was when he had made the decision to call Yuugi Mutou.

This situation had contained a sense of foreboding that eclipsed all others that he had ever experience, be them inklings or hunches. It had grated on Seto, to know that he was incapable of dismissing his anxieties. The entire country, let alone, city, had been on edge, waiting with bated breath for the word of change and Seto hadn't liked it. No matter how 'normal' the citizens of Domino pretended to behave, it did not change the underlying worry. Desperate people did desperate things, and Seto had known that better than most others. It would have only been a matter of time, he'd thought, before the city would decline.

Talking to Yuugi, Seto had reasoned to himself at one point, would calm him. Even if it seemed silly or ridiculous, Seto had needed to check every option available to him. It remained very likely that Yuugi could somehow explain the situation and, as per usual, offer a solution even if it happened to be one that Seto did not agree with. And if Yuugi had known about the situation, the more likely dueling would have played a part in it. The closer that the solution loomed to a skill that he could boast of, the more control Seto could have had over it. How many times had Yuugi remarked during a duel that the fate of the world had hung in the balance? It very much had seemed that the stakes were that high, and if believing in all of the ridiculousness that Yuugi had preached to him could help put a stop to it, that was the least that Seto could do. It was not natural, the way that Domino had trudged on, a husk of what it had once been, the peoples scattered from fear and regret and confusing. It had been unsettling to watch, even.

Three years without talking or not, Seto had kept himself updated on his rival's progress just in case of a challenge. Yuugi had often been in smaller papers after the end of the Grand Prix, and often did tours for tournaments and to promote the game. Despite his feelings toward the man Yuugi had even participated in promotions for KaibaCorp. He had always popular with all ages and his duels, alongside Seto's own, had often been shown at conventions and still discussed openly among players.

At least, they used to.

Several calls to Yuugi's cell phone had gone straight to voicemail, across a span of days. That had not been a good sign. Perhaps Yuugi's number had simply changed, but there would not have been any way to obtain an updated one; registries for that sort of information had ceased updating quite a while ago. He had tried Yuugi's cheerleaders next, all but the Mutt - no answer. Though he would have never admitted his true feelings about the inability to reach his rival directly or indirectly, Seto had taken it upon himself to follow up on his whereabouts. With Mokuba beside him and a single body guard dressed in street clothes but armed to the teeth, he traveled to the _Kame Game Shop_.

Sugoroku Mutou had looked lonesome, sitting at the front desk of the store as though the business had been about to pick up at any moment, but his eyes widened when they'd landed on Seto.

"Please..."

Seto had thought he'd heard the man whisper, but when there was no continuation he stated his business, asking about Yuugi (and reluctantly) his friends.

The response he'd received from the grandfather had been tearful and melancholy. Yuugi, according to Sugoroku, had last been heard from while in New York a few months prior for a dueling competition. Anzu, Otogi, Honda and the Mutt had gone with him, and he had not heard from any of them since. He had been concerned about Yuugi's safety, but couldn't reach him what with Japan's communications to the outside world being cut off.

Something about the old man's expression, the wetness of his eyes that was _just_ being held away from tears, had moved him. Seto had not been able to bring himself to relay the news about the West, the strange reports of monsters, and his own personal feelings about the situation. Mokuba had taken the lead, to go on to encourage Sugoroku that Yuugi must have been safe - Yuugi had always been able to take care of himself before.

Seto could tell by the look in Sugoroku eyes that he had not believed a word that Mokuba had said, and feared the worst. It was very unlike Yuugi's grandfather, he'd thought, to seem so without hope - if anything, it ran in the family by the gallon - and to help soothe the man's fears Seto had promised to relay word if he were able to hear anything. Quietly, as they had prepared to leave, he had added that Sugoroku was welcome at the Tower if he'd ever wanted company. It had been the only thing he could have offered.

When they'd left the shop, door shutting behind them, Mokuba began to cry.

"That's it, isn't it?" Mokuba had said, rubbing his face. "This is... what's going on?"

He shouldn't have assumed that Mokuba would have been in the dark for long. The boy was smart, resourceful, and had more than a sense for danger, having been in the midst of it so often.

"I don't know," Seto had told him, because he hadn't known. Not then.

That group of people, Yuugi and his friends, had been the most likely to able to clarify this chain of events. Uncanny or not, believable or not, there had to be an explanation for the transpiring events. If only he could have contacted Yuugi, and hear that reasonably unreasonable logic, he could rest. He would have known that, somehow, things would have been handled eventually.

As time passed, people slowly began to stop working. There had been no announcement, no decision - but being quarantined, there had been no global economy. Seto had checked the stocks, hoping for the best, but the numbers, as with any other piece of digital information, had frozen on a display from several months prior. Domestic, to his shock, had also been frozen, the last date listed having been nearly a month ago.

Rather than feeling uneasy or squeamish, Seto's blood had run cold as he stared as though figures. Money talked, and if it was no longer... In a short time, money would no longer be important in any capacity.

He had decided to take action. Money brought rules, and without them - even he could not predict Domino's fate.

The city's citizens had not realized this yet, or were too stupid to realize what the signs met. Prices for necessities had begun to climb to the unreasonable. Screaming matches often took place within stores charging too much. His trips outside of him home became less frequent, and when he did he no longer took Mokuba with him, nor had he allowed himself to dress in his typical fashion.

Seto had known that there would be a riot at some point in the near future.

He had been in a delicate position, holding wealth, and he tried his best to tread quietly, having Mokuba and his guard and the most crucial of their belongings transferred to the KaibaCorp Tower. If there were going to be riots, the Manor would have no doubt been targeted. _Let the raff have it_, he decided. Those possessions would have never been worth his brother's life, or worth his own. The government officials, he'd found, had been the only groups to shun payment. Business owners had held to the opinion that _ money was power_, and Seto had been glad to pay them for their wares. Seto had decided not to pity them early on, for their greed would surely lead to their downfall.

The few employees who had continued to report consistently and timely to work had also been paid without delay. Emergency procedures had been drilled at least once a week, and triple guard had been posted throughout the structure. As excessive as it may have seemed for a dwindling country Seto had felt it necessary. There would have been no reason for anyone to disturb his business, to bring any surprises to his door while his preparations had been taking place. If things continued along the path that he had predicted, he would have use for the Kaiba Tower.

Unfortunately, it had.

The looting had begun first, and to his surprise had been reported mainly through radio broadcast. Stores with large supplies of necessities had been targeted before anything else, of course, and Seto Kaiba had watched from his tower as Domino turned to ruin. By that time, however, he had been prepared, and leaving the tower at all had been unnecessary. All that could have been done was to watch the city fall from safety.

Seto had thought that it would have been simple, to watch, to brood. He had not realize how maddening it would have been. From the 15th floor upward from the tower Seto Kaiba was capable of viewing the state of the city below; crowds had formed at random in the streets and mapped out attacked based on locations and wares. Many shopkeepers had been threatened and sometimes altercations escalated to violence. The city folk of Domino had wielded bats, chains, heavy objects and - though rarely, still - firearms.

The first time that Seto had seen a gun pointed at anyone in the city, Mokuba had pointed out the observation and he'd sent his little brother away. A telescope had helped clarify the matter. Two members of the same group of looters had decided to challenge each other, it had seemed like, and the end had been decided by two gunshots.

"Did anything happen?" Mokuba had asked, facing away from the window. "Did something happen?"

"Yes." Seto had answered, and nothing more.

Without having seen a thing, Mokuba had known his meaning, quailed and staved back tears, lamenting the inability to help. That situation, however, had given Seto a different idea.

That had been when he'd made the decision to arm the Tower from top to bottom. So far, KaibaCorp had been ignored - an office building near the outskirts of the suburbs that sold nothing useful nor made it; containing likely no food or provisions, it had been passed over many times as "that building with the dragon in front", as the Blue Eyes tended to garner attention. Occasionally, its employees had been harassed by looters for money as they traveled back and forth, but that had been the worst of it. Seto, however, knew that it would have been very unlikely for it to stay that way for long.

Soon enough, someone would have decided that the place would be useful for pilfering a few chairs, some furniture. Perhaps someone would have been curious about using such a large structure for shelter. Either way, Mokuba's life would have been in danger and that was something that, quarantine or not, Seto had not been able to bring himself to accept.

As paranoid as he had always been about the discovery of the link between himself and Gozaboro Kaiba, this was one time that the connection had come in handy. The only conceivable possibility, Seto had reasoned with himself, of such a connection doing good and certainly the most good it would have ever done.

The hold he'd been able to maintain over his henchmen thus far had, at first, been money; but with the slow deterioration of the city, that hold had become tighter through the offer of food, water, and possible shelter and safety. Only Isono had offered to to such a thing free of charge, but of course he had known that Seto never accepted favors without being able to deliver compensation. The world was... perhaps changing, as much as he had not wanted to admit it, but Seto had refused to allow those things to change him.

Those left in his personal employ had been given very specific directions and, hours later, had managed to deliver two trucks' worth of firearms and ammunition to the Tower. Gozaboro had never been one to leave his eggs in one basket, and Seto knowing that one of the old factories had held a cache of weapons had made the task easier. Of all things, Seto had bade his men retrieve the most dangerous weapons before anything else; he could not have afforded to risk a threat falling into existence because of the luck of discovering the factory.

Running automobiles had not been commonly seen in Domino for quite a while, and while Seto had acknowledged the risk there had been no other choice. Upon their return, they reported running into a group attempting to question them about the cargo, and when Seto had asked how they had handled the issue, Isono had been very adamant in letting him know that it was a matter that he should not have concerned himself with.

Whomever those people had been, they were no more. That hadn't sat right with Seto, had given him nightmares and had made his churning stomach worse for quite a few days. While he had been responsible for negative feelings before, for disappointment, for hurt, he had never even indirectly been the benefactor of the death of others. It had been a line that he had never crossed. Even on his worst day, he had never been given license to take another's life; Gozaboro had tried to take his, being a sore loser, and that was not something that he could have ever seen himself subjecting another person to.

The next phase of his plans had been to finally close the Tower to business. As soon as he had gained his bearings, had received at least a modicum of quality sleep, he had sought to address what little remained of his employees and guards. The message had been short and sweet: Domino had become too unstable to continue business as usual. No one had been sure of the cause of Japan's quarantine, but there had been no other option. Employees had been encouraged to spend time with their families and loved ones (a thing that Seto had added after glancing at Mokuba) and remain out of trouble, as there had been mobsters and others roaming the streets recently, looking to take advantage of them. Though supplies had been running below in the city, those had been interested in seeking refuge within the large building could as they fit. The gates had been slated to close at the end of the work day. Those uninterested had the option the leave. Others had mandated to meet in Seto's office on the 24th floor once the gates had closed to discuss arrangements.

"There is a sweep slated to take place at six fifteen," Seto had added sourly. He'd glanced at Mokuba again, and sighed. "Anyone found in the building and on the 24th floor at that time will be shot. Point blank. Thank you for your dedication and servitude to KaibaCorp and I wish you luck."

Mokuba's eyes had widened as the intercom crackled off, and Seto had shrugged, not knowing what else to say to him.

"You're going to _shoot_ them?" The outrage in Mokuba's voice had been clear-cut, and those had been more words than had been shared between them in days.

It had stung, to hear his brother question him that way, but there had been no other way to go about it. He had dared to brave his brother's anger. "I can't have people rummaging through the supplies, putting other people in danger. I can't risk it. I've done too much to see it crumble now."

"So you're just going to shoot them? You're just going to be like everyone else out there?"

"No," Seto had corrected sharply. "We're going to live."

And that had been the end of it.

The day, as he recalled, had taken a turn for the worst. Of all things, at three in the afternoon, his _office phone_ had rang. Not a soul had used a landline for communication in ages, and Seto had not been looking forward to whomever had been on the other end. When the alert had come from the guards, sitting with Mokuba in his office, Seto had scarcely believed it. But Isono wouldn't have lied to him, not about something this important.

Some small, irrelevant portion of this thoughts reasoned that it could have been Yuugi. Had that been the case, he had not been sure how he would have reacted.

The strain of the day's events had taken its toll, and Seto's hands had wrung on the neck of the receiver as he had moved to hold it to his ear.

"Who is this?" Clearly, if someone had been calling the number, they must have known whose number it had been.

"Ah, Kaiba." The familiar warble of the voice was cut by a sudden terseness. "It's nice to see that you're still alive. Still in Domino, I'm afraid." That sing-songiness was a voice that had haunted his dreams, at a time when Seto's encounters with this man had been the strangest thing he had ever encountered.

"Is this who I think it is?" He'd cursed himself mentally, for even as he'd spoken he had been able to hear the astonishment in his voice.

"Come now, of course it is, though I wish we were able to speak in better circumstances."

Seto's mind raced. Calling meant that they were within the same area. They'd both been trapped in Japan. "Where are you? Do you know what's going on?" Having had a company base both in the east in the west, this man had been his only hope for information. "If you know _anything—_"

"There is nothing to know, other than death and demise."

Such a declaration from a man who had been made of whimsy and smiles was not encouraging.

"No games. Tell me. I've been searching."

"Ah, yes you have. Been a busy bee. I've seen your activity online. Hacking into government computers? You won't find the information you want there."

For all of his preparation, Seto had no time for games, no time for his usual boasting and sharp banter. The situation had escalated to life or death, and if there had been anything that could have been done to save Domino, or Japan, or whatever else, he had _needed_ to know what it was.

"I don't have time for this. Tell me!"

"Steel yourself." The voice now sounded deathly serious. "The reports are true. The vile creatures... they... they've made it to Japan. I can't imagine that Domino has much longer."

His heart rate had accelerated without his permission. They were _true_. That video - the body, lying there in the road... That statement had answered a great many questions.

"I have called, Kaiba-boy, to warn you that the worst has come. Keep near our precious Yuugi-boy. It is your only chance of staying alive."

"He's gone," Seto answered him quickly.

Silence prevailed over the line for quite some time. "...oh, dear. I am not sure if much more can be done, in that case."

And now the great Pegasus J. Crawford had given up hope for them as well. "Where are you? I have provisions. I have the Tower. I can offer you safety. Surely you must have something set up?"

"No need, Kaiba-boy. I have already left Japan. The monsters approach."

The news floored him. "W-what?" his voice had broken for the first time in year, and just as quickly, there had been more questions on his tongue.

"This was meant to be my last communiqué, if you would. You will not be hearing from me again. I imagine that there isn't much left in Domino, and things... they will only become worse. Good Luck, Kaiba. Try to find them, the _Items_. They are your best bet of somehow getting through this mess. It is, after all, how I am even able to communicate with you."

It had made no sense to call if he hadn't planned to impart any truly useful information. "Wait, wait just one minute," Seto shouted, flustered.

"There's no need to yell, Kaiba-boy. There will be time for that soon enough."

"Cut the shit," Seto had told him, frustration burning through his veins. "Explain it to me, now! What do they do?" There had not been time for belief or disbelief. Simply information, of which Pegasus had and Seto had not.

"They consume. That is all I know. Good bye, Kaiba-boy. It was nice knowing that you've survived thus far. I knew you would."

The click on the other end of the phone had rung in his ears. He whisked to his computer, to play the video again. Over and over, he had watched it, trying to piece together whether or not he should have believed it to be true. It had defied the logic. What could have been the origin for such a creature?

"Seto," Mokuba had called. That call had been ignored. He hadn't been ready to try to explain things, not yet, and after a few minutes of silence Mokuba had decided to leave the office, heading for another that had served as his quarters.

How could Seto have protected his charges - Mokuba more notably - from creatures he knew nothing about. That no one, apparently, had known anything about? He'd obtained weapons, but had limited personnel to use them. He himself had never been trained in how to handle a gun. He would have to learn, he'd decided.

Then the alarm sounded.

At first, Seto had not been sure of if his ears had been playing tricks on him or not, but a few seconds of deafening noise had been enough to dispel that uncertainty. Immediately after, his mind jumped to Mokuba. There had been no impact to the building, at least none that he'd been able to feel, and he rushed to the hall. His brother had stood there, openly scared, eyes wide as dinner plates. His guard stood beside him, and Seto approved.

"Sir," the man had told him, "there's a disturbance downstairs."

"No shit," Seto had snapped.

A high pitched whine had sounded from his walkie, nearly drowned in the alarm.

"Take Mokuba and shut the alarm off."

"S-sir," the man's voice quavered. "The reports... are that..."

"—I don't have time," Seto cut him off. "Spill it and do your job. Let's go."

"Th-th..." the man sputtered, and pulled Mokuba to the elevator. At least he'd had the sense to keep moving.

That afternoon had been the first time he'd seen one of them with his own eyes. As he had watched the battle take place through the security cameras. It had all seemed so surreal, looking at the static images. Someone had crashed, apparently, into one of the stone walls surrounding the premise outside, causing a portion of it to collapse. the men had rushed out of the building to investigate; several others were shrieking and and running, jarred by the sound of the impact, pushing and shoving to get to the elevator.

Outside, what emerged from the wreckage had not been injured or sick. Seto wouldn't have even guessed that they had once been human. The flesh on them was a greyish, sickly green, with large chunks of skin missing, sometimes showing bone. The blood on their clothes, dripping from their mouths and eyes had been red, fresh, and Seto lamented whoever had been in the car when they had attacked.

He had easily been able to forgive the others from panicking. The monsters had made their way slowly across the expanse of the lobby, his guards shooting wildly in their panic. Only Isono had managed to keep his composure, giving orders and the like, and Seto had wished that there could have been more to reward the man for his bravery without other than to say he'd managed to survive. With the return of those guards came the decision to lock the building down - emergency protocols. Anyone inside was just so; anyone who had not made it would not be.

That had been nearly three years ago.

The visions of how this had all began plagued him nightly. There had been few regrets: thanks to his research and thinking, the KaibaCorp Tower had become a beacon to those in the city who had managed to stumble onto the property. Supplies had been rationed strictly from the start of it all, and not a single person held all of the necessary information for running the tower - there were still many tasks that Seto only handled himself, or with Mokuba. His authority had been put in place early on, and the fact that many of the initial survivors had been his own employees had certainly been luck in his favor.

Of those things that he regretted, Mokuba was one of them. Seto regretted encouraging the boy to learn how to arm himself, most of all. He had been the one to put a gun in his hand first, to tell Mokuba that it was necessary that he defend himself, preserve his life over all else. There had to be a leader for the Tower in the case that Seto became lost - for any reason. From that moment forth, Mokuba had spent all of his time practicing with the guards and avoiding him. Mokuba had grown to be good at it, at aiming, attacking, protecting. He had taken down his fair share of Walkers, and those deeds had changed him; he was so far away from the Mokuba that had crawled into his bed, that had sought reassurance. A far cry from the Mokuba that had comforted Sugoroku Mutoh.

These days, Seto and Mokuba barely spoke of anything other than duty.

Perhaps Seto had expected something different, and that was the reason why he was so disappointed by his relationship with his brother. If he were honest with himself, really honest, he'd hoped that Mokuba would have been glad of the shelter, the supplies, the quick thinking that had saved them all. But Seto wasn't stupid; he could see that Mokuba thought him cruel and rigid, that his lack of emotion in this circumstance, too, meant that he couldn't feel for his charges.

If nothing else, Seto felt for them more. Mokuba had been the only person close to him, and he'd worked hard to make sure that they were able to survive together. Since the beginning of this whole mess, since that first attack, he'd had to watch mothers trudge in, missing children; families missing whole parts and friends that had forged their relationships through losses and tears. Seto spoke to each and every one of the men and women - even children - in the Tower. Their experiences yielded information that was valuable.

For example, the creatures were attracted more to sound than anything else. When the city was silent, so were they. A twig snapping was enough to draw their attention. That meant, of course, that whenever there was an incident where they had to defend themselves, the scuffle would simply draw more. They could only hope to be in the position to pick them off, to be in the safety of the upper floors.

Seto turned away from the window and seated himself at his desk. So many things had yet to be done: there was rationing of food, and another scouting party that was leaving to seek out survivors that afternoon, to get to the bottom of that camp in the distance. There were many who had expressed wishes to go scouting often, to try their best to see if anyone they knew had survived. A dangerous notion, certainly, but what he knew was more dangerous was a camp of people with nothing to do. Idleness bread insanity and disorder, and Seto had time for neither in his compound.

Massaging his temples, Seto tried his best to relax, at least a little.

A knock on his office door was the first sign that such a moment was not his to have that day. Mokuba entered without pause, that clinking sounding as he did so. Seto held himself in check that time, however, and sighed.

"Problems? I haven't heard the alarm."

Mokuba shook his head. "On the Radio. Ishizu."

His brother received a larger sigh in response.

Of all the discoveries he had made during this plight, the most relieving by far had been that Yuugi was in fact alive. The news had not reached him until for some time after his first encounter of the Walkers, and in the strangest way. In hindsight, such a development should have made sense - Yuugi was not one to do things in the typical way, and he had never been.

Seto had spent that morning speaking to a woman who had lost her children to the Walkers before finding her way to the Tower with a small group. What small number of companions she had brought with her had been skilled with guns and knives, and had been as welcome as anyone else. The stress of living, survivors guilt, had been getting to her and there had been reports from many people on the lower floors that she had been talking about killing herself. That sort of talk was dangerous. He had tried his best to be patient with her, but it had been difficult; the Tower had, at the time, recently lost its access to floors 5 and down because of the Walkers.

More specifically, because an argument had broken out against two newcomers who had been unstable. Seto had not known before then that no matter how a person died, they returned as a walker. The noise of the panic and of the response team dealing with the new Walkers attracted the attention of ones nearby. He couldn't have described his rage at having to close off five entire floors, at having lost three innocent people, perpetrators not included. To make things worse, it would be more difficult to clear out those floors afterwards so that they could get to transportation and leave the building freely; scouts would have to be sent out to draw the Walkers away from the Tower. So much manpower had to be put into those operations, so much risk.

This had been what he had been trying to explain when he'd been interrupted. Someone, he'd been told, was broadcasting on the radio, and they'd been asking specifically for him. He had needed to report to his office.

Jumping at the opportunity, Seto had quickly called Mokuba to take over this particular task, as he would not leave the woman alone, not until she had made a decision to do what was best to the group. A more cruel leader would have hauled her out and left her to the Walkers, but as cruel as they may have thought him for refusing extra amenities, for not dwelling on the dead when they needed instruction; he did care, at the very least, for the well-being of the group, and to a certain extent that meant those within it.

The radio broadcast had been loud and clear, a feminine voice speaking, interrupted by little more than a crackle. This had been astonishing, as Seto had the radio scanning for active frequencies and had found very little. Somewhere in Domino, a small crew had been holed up in one of the towers and occasionally broadcasted what they saw from the top. The station, unfortunately, had been too far away for them to consider making the journey, and Seto had been able to do nothing for them. He hadn't been willing to send a group out to camp and spend the night outdoors. Such a thing had not been attempted, nor had anyone volunteered for such a feat. He had not been willing to push anyone to risk saving anyone they had no relation or connection to.

The voice, when he'd reached the office, had been repeating a message over and over:

"For those that may hear my voice, I search for a man by the name of Seto Kaiba, of Japanese descent. I have reason to believe that he is alive and well." The message went on to explain that there was a phone that would be functioning at noon at which time she could be called. No further details had been given.

Curiosity, more than anything had been his motivator for taking him up on the offer, and more than that, the desire to know more about this woman and her origin. No two ways about it, the woman had specifically referred to him as Japanese - meaning that the woman herself had not been. There had never been any doubt in his mind that there had been foreigners trapped in the country during the quarantine, but this woman's voice and cadence when speaking had sounded familiar.

Silently, he had been glad that there had been good surprises left to the world as well.

Mokuba had spent the morning questioning him about the broadcast, picking his brain for a location or anything that would have been useful. He'd thought that, perhaps, the call would be a trap to lure him in, to steal resources, and he had warned Seto against meeting anyone alone. The warning had been unnecessary and on the whole an irritating affair. Seto had not liked going outside, let alone meeting with anyone or anything.

As it turned out, such a worry had not been necessary.

When he had made the call, the line rang once, twice, thrice, and as the bleating sound forged a pattern in his ears Seto had thought that, rather than a hoax, perhaps something overcame them. The noise of the broadcast, perhaps, had drawn Walkers to them. His hands had gripped the phone tightly in dismay. He had never been in contact with a party that he could not have seen by looking out of the window. The woman had had a rather stately voice; what if she had some sort of rescue planned? Nothing about her subject of conversation had been mentioned, and for good reasons. Seto also would have avoided tempting others to call at the appointed time.

After what had seemed like a lifetime, a small crackle indicated answering on the other line, but was overwhelmed by static. To make matters less complicated, Seto put her on the speaker and sent the guards away to check other things. Mokuba had remained without a word.

"Am I speaking... Kaiba?" The static had cut out the middle of the sentence, but the meaning had remained intact.

"I don't receive messages without being able to ask questions first."

Rather than be offended, the feminine voice had taken on emotion, and sounded something in the direction of happy. "You... you're really alive. Oh, Ra bless you..." she went on, but Seto couldn't make out a word of it.

From his position at the door, Mokuba had began to move forward, approaching the desk. It was a detail that Seto would never forget. His expression, intrigued, had hidden something like relief underneath, and had been the first time Seto had seen anything like that on his face since this whole crisis had begun. It had been a relief to simply know that his brother had still been capable of such emotion, and especially in his presence.

"Who are you, where are you, and why is there so much static?" A plausible explanation had occurred to him, and he had proposed, "Are you underground? Do you need help?" No matter who this woman was, or how she had known him, the fact of the matter had been that she had been a survivor, and with that having been the case Seto had been obligated to help her.

_No more,_ he'd told himself. _I'm tired of watching people dying._

It had been all that he'd seen since the first attack,death and decay; not only of the bodies that had risen up to attack them, but the resolve of those thirty odd people in the building, in the streets, in stories of those who had come to seek shelter with them. Thinking of the woman he had been speaking to that morning, of her description of the deaths of her children. It was a type of sorrow that he had not witnessed himself first hand, but the looming possibility chilled his blood. Glancing over at Mokuba, Seto had known that, if anything happened to him, he would not have been able to continue.

"No, no, my dear. Maintaining our contact is ... difficult, because ... not in Japan."

At first his mind had jumped to that conversation he'd had with Pegasus. It had seemed like a life time ago, being told that there had been no hope without Yuugi. He had bitten his tongue, then, to refrain from asking this woman if he knew of Yuugi Mutou. Such a thing could not have been possible.

"Who are you?"

"My name is ... you know. ...Ishizu Ishtar."

Seto had tried to steel himself, to take hold of his information and rationalize it. This woman, claiming to be a person from his past, had somehow contacted him overseas. There had been no proof for these things, other than the knowledge of his name and general location. He had tried his best to adopt Mokuba's skepticism; this could have been a trap. Despite himself, Seto had felt a nervousness arise, apprehension for the opposite.

_What if...?_

Without prompt, the voice had continued to speak, to explain while Seto had remained silent in his thoughts. The line had become more clear as she had continued to speak. She had reassured him, first, that she was the genuine Ishizu, and to that end began to rattle off a series of Duel Monsters cards, some of which had once been in his deck. Some of them, however, had never even been in consideration. The names had sounded familiar, but more had been on his mind in that last year, gathering supplies and preparing for Domino's fall - and having lived through it - he could not have said that they were familiar.

"I... I know those cards," Mokuba had spoken up. "I remember them."

"...I remember you, young Kaiba. I knew that you would survive."

It had been in that moment that Seto had been reassured of her identity. He had remembered their dialogue, their back and forth, her going on about _the future, _this and that. She had slated herself to win the duel, and such a thing had not transpired.

_I make my own destiny_, is what Seto had told her. Those cards, they had been from their Battle City duel. How could she have remembered them?

A large part of him had rejoiced in knowing that she had been alive. She had been a part of that 'Heart of the Cards' tripe, she and her competitive brother. Maybe she had been with Yuugi at the time. Maybe could have told him where Yuugi was, or if he had died. Maybe, just maybe, there was a chance of resolving this mess.

But Ishizu had not been able to deliver all that Seto had wanted. Her mission had been to relay information, she had told him. To his utter relief, she had brought news of Yuugi. The man was alive. He had been in New Jersey, one of the States, when that continent had been swept by The Plague, she had said. She herself, she had been quick to supply, had been in Egypt at first but had moved to some god-forsaken country called Kazakhstan, near the Aral Sea. Seto would have needed a map simply to find out its proximity to Japan, but the crackling from the line earlier on had spoken for itself.

In the end, she had provided news of the impossible: The reason for her survival, as well as Yuugi's and several others, had been the cause of their Items, a reference that she'd needed to refresh Seto on. The gold things around their necks had, apparently, saved them all from the hoards of Walkers.

Such a revelation had not fazed him. True or untrue, he had lived through more than the unbelievable. Charms that repelled the dead had been the least of his worries, and more than anything, would have helped. Those charms, which Ishizu had explained were 'Millennium Items', had each a unique ability and several shared ones. This, she had implied, had been the reason for their importance before the Walkers.

"The past is past," Seto had cut her off, when it seemed that she had been about to go into an 'I told you so' speech concerning their conversations during the Battle City Tournament all those years ago. "What does this have to do with me now? I don't have one of those... contraptions."

Those charms also, apparently, had been what had allowed her to contact him. It had all began to fit together, the pieces that he had not been able to figure out. How Pegasus had been able to contact him, how he'd told Seto that being near Yuugi Mutou had been his best chance of survival.

"We communicate with each other, we with the Items," she had told him. "At first we had been unsure of your safety. My necklace would not show me what I wanted for some time."

There had been four of those items being used currently. Yuugi and his friends had forged a compound in the States on the East coast, giving shelter to those in the area; Marik had remained in Egypt; and Ryou Bakura, the boy that Seto had remembered as being sickly and weak, had been described as 'wandering around'. He had quickly given up on trying to interpret that piece of information, as it had been neither relevant nor useful in any way.

Ishizu had concluded that they, the four of them, still communicated with each other regularly, and that collectively, they had all desired to keep in touch with Seto as well. His Tower held supplies and technology that many of them lacked.

"And you have transportation. You have the aircraft," Ishizu had pointed out. "We would like to barter for these things."

Seto's heartbeat had quickened at the mention of it. That had not been a resource that he had shared with anyone beside Mokuba or Isono. Firstly, the craft was not standard for a craft its size; secondly, if anything... unsavory ever happened to the Tower, that was going to be their way out, no questions asked. Each and every person staying within his shelter had, or had once had, someone that they would have been willing to kill her, to abandon others for. As much as Seto would have liked to be able to save the men and women who had donated their skills and knowledge to the benefit of the Tower, Mokuba's safety, in his eyes, came before them.

"I can't promise anything with the jet."

"We shall see, Seto Kaiba."

Since then, he had heard their voices on the radio, listened for how they communicated. Using whatever abilities or technology they had, the three of them (Bakura rarely included) broadcasted on the same signal and that was how they spoke. It had never been stated, but Seto had guessed that the radio frequency had been the easiest to maintain. Phone calls had been rarely used to communicate. Ishizu, using what she called the ability to see the future, would alert them of events that were potentially dangerous. At first, they had discussed Seto but that topic had faded quickly after it had been established that he had been alive and wel.

Personally, he would have been disappointed if they had not.

Listening, that had been the first time that he had heard Yuugi's voice for himself, confirmed what Ishizu had told him. His voice had somehow become softer, stressed with fatigue. The others had seemed to defer to him, and on more than one occasion Marik, voice still annoying as ever, had referred to him as 'Pharaoh'. An echo, to be sure, of what he had once called Yuugi during the Battle City Tournament. It had been surprising, in all honesty, how much information about his interactions with these people he had been able to remember.

How childish all of it seemed in hindsight.

"Seto."

Mokuba's voice seemed more stern, urgent, as he called for his brother. The sharp edge of his voice had been enough to wake Seto from his nostalgic reverie.

"I said, Ishizu's on the radio. She's listed another number. You're supposed to call it in thirty minutes. It's important, she says."

Seto ran his fingers through his hair. "Fine," he grumbled.

"Are you alright?" Mokuba sighed, stepping closer.

There would be no way to describe to his little brother how far from 'alright' he was, how he hadn't been able to feel even remotely close to any sense of balance in such a long time. The churning in his stomach had become constant, and not simply from hunger. Seto had been ill-at-ease since the very start of all of this. Even with the added comfort of knowing that Yuugi was alive, of being able to say that most of his questions concerning all of this had been answered, it was not enough. The more important questions had not been answered: what had caused all of this in the first place? Who was at fault? Would life simply pitter on in this way until supplies ran low and they were all forced to fight each other? When that time came and Seto and Mokuba (with Isono in tow), would he be able to deal with all of the deaths indirectly on his hands? What difference would it make to save Mokuba if he would be hated for all of the decisions that had allowed him to do so.

"Mokuba, go downstairs and tell them that the scouting isn't happening today. I don't have a good feeling about it. It's too dangerous."

Standing with his hand on his hip, Mokuba's eyes narrowed. "It's always going to be too dangerous, Seto. We're surrounded on all side by those fucking—" he seemed to catch himself and take a deep breath before continuing, "Look, we have to fight our way out of the lower floors whenever we try to do anything. We've scouted around the neighborhood before, and nothing's come of it. There aren't a lot of people left in Domino. It's not going to get any less dangerous than it already is. Those things out there, they're not going away. That group out there? They could be the only ones left. It's been almost a year, and at this point we're meeting people who migrated here from other cities! It's obvious that everyone is dead or lost and about to be dead, and you want to keep everyone from seeing if the people they love are still alive."

Seto could feel a flicker of muscle underneath his eye. "This isn't a matter of finding someone or not finding someone. It's a matter of safety. What about the people who are here? What if you all go out there and valuable people die? What if you can't handle those... those things? The Walkers aren't going to wait to see if you're ready, they're not going to ask if you're on your way to find others and then let you alone."

"I can handle them." The cock of one of Mokuba's handguns accompanied the statement, and Seto simply shook his head. "I've practiced. I've trained. I've even taken some of them out before. You know this."

"And I was against _that_ trip. You nearly were bitten. Do you think that this is a game? This isn't a round of target practice."

"You just don't understand. You've never understood. Killing those things out there is the only sense of relief we can get. Those things _eat_ us, Seto. They take our loved ones and turn them into ...monsters."

It was vengeance that his brother was after. That his brother was so willing to go on a hunt, not for anything useful but to simply _kill_; to waste ammo and time and energy to comfort himself with violence.

"So instead of taking care of you I'm just supposed to let you go on a wild spree? Just go kill all the Walkers you want? Risk all the lives you want?" He'd had enough nightmares of having to be the one to pull the trigger on his brother. We're surviving. We are _lucky_ to be in this situation. Of all things, we lack fresh clothing. _Clothing, _Mokuba! Not food, not water, not defenses. Are you so willing to throw that away?"

He couldn't stand it any longer, and stalked out of the room before Mokuba had the chance to leave. "And put that damned gun away!" he shouted on his way out.

The situation with Ishizu, when they spoke, was not any better. She wanted to meet with him. In person.

"And how exactly do you propose I do that?"

"You have an aircraft, Seto. You are the only one that can manage it."

Everyone wanted the impossible from him. "Do you know what risk I have to take to do that. What could you possibly want to talk about that can't be handled over the radio?"

"I can only assure you, Seto Kaiba, that this is a matter that I stress is of the utmost important. It is imperative to the safety of your compound that we meet."

They had been trying to get him to barter for months, and he was not planning to fall for their attempts. "Prove it. What could I possibly gain for traveling to meet you?"

"It is more than simply myself, Kaiba. We would _all _like to meet."

The scoff that followed could not have been enough to express how he felt about this proposal. The gall that these people had! He was the only one with an operable craft, and they wanted him to waste valuable fuel and hours to do what? To have a reunion? No matter how glad he may have been to know that there were others, and that they were surviving, he severely doubted that they had anything of worth to offer him. Seto refused to speak another word until he said something remotely convincing.

"...we are aware of your hesitancy. We are willing to barter to make this worthwhile for you. You do, after all, have the most at stake in this venture, although the most to gain."

Seto did not respond.

"Yuugi is willing to trade you as many clothes as you can carry on your craft. I've done my homework, Seto Kaiba, and my Necklace has shown me that your people will be crying out for garments soon."

It was a start. "And that's supposed to make me pack up and attract a horde of Walkers to my Tower while I take off? What if I come back and I've been overrun? What can you do about that?"

"I have assurance from the Necklace that no harm will come to your compound."

Still, Seto was skeptical about the trip. "You once told me I would lose a duel because it was foretold. I didn't."

Ishizu took a moment to respond, and she chose her words calmly. "You have that power. It was not a typical circumstance."

For just a moment, Seto allowed himself to re-live that moment of power. He had refused to believe her, to believe in her magic. He had thought them lies, at the time, and such disbelief had been enough. The entire duel she had prattled on about fate and destiny and his loss. In front of her brother and in front of the finalists, he had crushed her, out maneuvered her, out thought her. In those days, winning a duel had been the only important thing. Defending his title, the job that had taken the highest priority. That feeling of triumph, the pride that he'd had and kept with him... he would have done nearly anything to get that back.

"Marik is willing to add some measure of unperishable food to that. I'm afraid that I do not have any personal resources to add, other than a few survival items - ropes, lighters, oil, and gas for cars. We have found some measure of jet fuel as well here, but I do not know whether or not it is compatible with your jet. Please, Kaiba. I am begging. We cannot trust this matter to anyone but you."

Against his better judgment, he agreed that he would leave in two days from their conversation. He did not have enough fuel to make such a long trip more than once, however, and told her that this could not be repeated; more than bringing everyone together there was also the responsibility of taking everyone back as well. Ishizu gave him approximate coordinates, and warned him to take as many weapons as he could carry, both hand combat and no. Yuugi and Marik were both taking risks as well, as the noise of a craft would attract unwanted attention no matter where he went.

When he told Mokuba about the decision, his younger brother's face lit up with what looked like genuine excitement.

"You _cannot_ take anyone out to do _anything_ while I am gone. I mean it, Mokuba. I'll be in the air for hours. It's dangerous enough where I'm going."

Flying would never be the same for him again. Viewing the earth from below was a devastating sight to behold. Launching from the Tower had been a difficult task in and of itself. Mokuba and Isono had been so kind as to alert everyone that they would be testing the emergency generators, to account for the sound and vibration. Anyone competent with weapons had been split into two groups, one aiming from the windows and another guarding the lower entrances. Mokuba had assured him that things would go off without a hitch, but he couldn't help but frown upon his departure.

The hardest part about the trip was looking down. Try as he might to fly above the clouds, heading towards a destination that he was unfamiliar with required verification of his location. Wherever the jet went, people cowered and hid; in some areas of open land he could see the Walkers, headed in the direction of the sound that they would never catch.

The landscape was much the same whenever he landed. New Jersey, it had been decided, would be the first stop. The meet had been decided in Ishizu's location; Ryou Bakura, for the moment, was in attendance there and for some reason that fact had been considered important. Yuugi had been smart; he'd made his way to the rooftop of a building, alone, one with a landing. From the sky, it looked very much like Domino. That blond hair, still bright in the light, was the way that Seto noticed him, and in spite of everything he had been through the sight had made him sigh in relief.

Yuugi stood alone in the rubble that was on the roof, two large bags beside him.

When Seto landed he made sure to wield a shotgun. Just in case of attack. "Get in," he said, and took off without another word.

Marik's pickup was much the same, though the landscape was different. The sand made it difficult to see and unfortunately Marik had to make a bit of a trek from their meeting site.

Seto did not think that he could handle a tearful hello. These were people that he had not seen in years, and he did not trust himself to avoid paying attention to them. He had duelled alongside Yuugi, opposite him; for both the same cause and against it. Even Marik, for all of the damage that he had done, for all of his ranting and irrational behavior, was a familiar face and seeing the two of them gave him the false sense that things in the world were just a little closer to normal. When they were within the safety of Ishizu's compound he would have time to examine them, to see how they had changed or had not; he could make his observations then.

Until then he wouldn't worry about the landscape. He wouldn't worry about how Yuugi or Marik had bothered to secure their people without the presence of their Items - the fact that both of them had managed to make it to a landing site (or near it, in Marik's case) without attack to him spoke volumes of their claims. There was finally concrete proof of those charms and their power.

Did that mean that the other things, the incidences before the decline, had happened too? Everything, those speeches about souls and the fate of the world had all been true. It was no longer a question, so far as Seto was concerned.

He put those thoughts out of his mind and focused on flying. Yuugi and Marik chatted with each other and that helped to put him at ease. The droning of noise could keep him awake until they landed at their final destination.

Once they neared the final landing site, Marik spoke to him directly. "I'm supposed to tell you before we land that it won't be nearby. We'll be a good thirty minute walk out. She didn't want to tell you, well, because she knew that you would be uncomfortable with leaving it. They'll meet us halfway."

"No one is leaving the plane," Seto said.

"They don't have many cars here. We're going to have to walk, and if you land that thing too close those she'll have a damn war on her hands."

Seto sucked his teeth and swore underneath his breath the entire time he landed the plane. He'd known that this trip was going to be too dangerous for his taste. Not only had he been flying a plane for almost a full day non-stop, but now he was going to have to wade through a hoard of Walkers as well.

His body shivered in the cold and his shrinking form stood barely over his companions. The winds were high in this location and he hadn't been prepared. Ishizu certainly should have been able to predict the weather; he could have warned her. He was not in favor of this endeavor at this point. Too much risk. Too little reward.

Marik had pointed out the way, referencing a sheet of paper that Seto assumed had directions on it.

_Of course_, he mused, _why should I have suspected Ishizu to tell me everything?_

He did not dare to speak, however, since they were moving and there were likely surrounded. Fingers gripping tightly on his gun, Seto frowned; he was too exhausted from the flight.

But the rendezvous happened without a hitch, and Ishizu's tall form, flanked by vagrants that Seto could only assume were her charges, met them along the way. Never had Seto traveled for such a long period of time on foot without having to take a shot at the head of a Walker. His feet dragged, and it was only when they entered what appeared to have once been a hospital that he made the realization: with those golden artifacts around, the Walkers would not attack them.

"I'm so glad to see you, brother," Ishizu said, once the doors had closed behind them.

The lobby area was warm, granting him a bit of relief, and they all embraced each other. Seto did his best to stand on his own, but his mind could barely focus on the ground, let alone pleasantries.

"I need a room. Now. We'll talk tomorrow."

Ishizu accommodated his request for rest without delay. The hospital was cramped and, in some of the more damaged portions of the building, colder than the lobby, but he was given winter gear. Before long he was outfitted in a parka, gloves and boots, and although the latter had been a size too small, it was good enough to keep him from freezing and that would have to be enough.

The natives stayed away from them as much as possible, even crowded in a room with them; his rest was disturbed by nothing but nightmares. Nothing different from the typical, only the added bonus of being away from home when his worst fears went down. Returning to the Tower to find it infested with the undead, an army of them feasting on fresh remains on the floors. All those potential resources, gone to waste, the bodies of those that he had taken care of for months strewn about the floor. Children, mothers, wives, husbands. Teens that, when Mokuba had been their age had been learning how to fly jets and manage the company. They had never received that chance. In those dreams, Mokuba was never simply dead. He was always a walker, bushy dark hair protruding in tufts from his head, an eye falling out of its socket, decaying arms somehow still holding onto his gun.

That dream never ended well, and when Seto awoke several hours later, he was drenched in cold sweat.

Having had a small chance to rest, Seto had not wanted to rise. Never before had he the chance to sleep in, never had he ever been _not in charge_. This wasn't his compound. He had no personal attachment to the people here, no clue how things worked.

That being said, a full night's sleep also made him more alert. As he passed through the halls, escorted by Ishizu herself, he could see the signs of wear and tear that had taken place on the Hospital. Many of the windows on the upper floors had been boarded up, and still couldn't keep the drafting out. The walls and floor were covered with dirt and grime, and some places looked as though they were about to cave in. Seto knew that hospitals had generators, and that was likely a convincing reason for the choosing of it; he couldn't imagine that any other buildings could have also had heat and running water.

The room that they used to meet in was a surgery room, the table cleaned and fitted with chairs so that they would all have a place to sit in. Seto's eyes searched his surroundings, now that he could focus. He could immediately tell that this facility was lacking food. Even Ishizu herself had lost a lot of weight, her parka making her look like a stick-shaped pillow. Those faces that stared back at him looked haunted and gaunt, cheeks hollow and eyes sullen. Seto felt sorry for them, for the lack of food here, and decided that he would stick out the trip taking the least amount of food as possible, if he was offered any at all.

"I've gone through a lot of trouble to get here. We need to make this quick. I don't belong here." That opener served to set the mood. He didn't want to dilly-dally. They'd managed to get him to pick everyone else, to get him there.

"I'd like to welcome you all, firstly," Ishizu said. "I'm afraid I don't have much to offer by the way of accommodations, but I hope that you all slept well enough. As Kaiba has said, we shouldn't delay."

Yuugi and Ishizu sat on opposite ends of the table, and Marik sat across from him. Their Millennium charms gave off a faint glow, and it made Seto feel like the odd person out. The light almost added a bit of life to their faces. Now that he had the chance, and the energy, to look at them, the sight caused him to frown.

Marik's skin looked paler than he remembered, and his hair did not look as ...pointy. The man was as worn as the rest of them, but otherwise not much different. He'd been outfitted in a coat as well, but Seto could still see the lack of weight on his person. His golden item, some sort of miniature staff with winged shaped ornaments on the side, sat on top of the table, contrasting with the silver. His fingers, curled around it, were what gave away his stature. His skin seemed as though it had stretched across them, thin and taut, and only areas touching his staff seemed to have any life to them.

Somehow Yuugi looked worse than the others. It was not the starvation, the skin-and-bones look that had much become them all; with Yuugi, it was much more daunting: he looked _older_. There had not even been two years since this whole thing began, since the disappearances and Domino's quarantine and yet there were creases on his forehead and bags under his eyes that looked as though they would be a permanent addition to his visage. Once bright eyes were dull with fatigue, and his head was bowed as though it were too heavy for his body. He was clearly worse off than the others, and for a fleeting moment Seto wondered if he had been bitten.

"I brought food," Marik said. "It's canned, but, you know. I know you don't have much here, and I won't make you go out hunting in this cold."

Ishizu inclined her head without response as Marik began pulling a few things from a space beside him on the table. As the silence settled around them, Seto realized with a start that in spite of all of the danger of his tower, he was the person who had come out the best from this situation. In spite of having to fight tooth and nail to emerge from the Tower to hunt for meat, in spite of the flickering lights and the lack of comfortable beds, and in spite of the lack of one of those charms, he had come out on top.

He no longer regretted journeying so far for this meeting.

Clearing his throat, he said, "I brought weapons." The cache of them in the Blue Eyes jet, even if they had to fight their way back to it when he left—

_Ah, but we won't have to_, he corrected himself. _Those artifacts..._ It was a strange notion, to be able to ignore the threat of the Walkers. The idea of it seemed unnatural, since they were currently the most lethal force on the planet.

Seto grumbled to disguise his pity. "You can split what I brought amongst you. I don't know what weapons you have here, if any."

"Yuugi," Marik said, pointing. "'Shizu. You two can split them. I'm fine."

There were no pleasantries here, no polite denial. Everyone would take what resources they could where they could get them.

Yuugi's voice was soft and tired, and when he began to speak Seto made sure to pay attention. Something about his countenance gave off the feeling that he had been through a lot - more than the rest of them had, and Seto could not help deferring to him without question. The burning feeling that had once gripped him whenever he had seen Yuugi had died out, and the ashes of a once warm fire left cold ashes in its wake.

"I brought what I promised. I hope the coats helped. New Jersey has bitter winters; the stores we explore almost always have clothing for snow. I have never seen so much snow."

There was a creak behind them, and Seto turned to see a large tuft of grey hair enter the room.

"Ah," the voice held a sharp edge that put Seto on alert. "The King, The Princess of Ice and The Scourge, all gathered in the same room. How wonderful. Hello, Seto Kaiba."

Ryou Bakura was dressed in a faded green peacoat, thick blue trousers and black boots, the rest of his ensemble covered by a large cloak, tattered and brown. He sounded as though he were in a better mood than the rest of them, though it could have been possible that he was simply glad to see them. He looked much better off than the rest of them, his fingers padded by what Seto shouldn't have been able to say was access fat on his fingers. When he lowered the hood of his cloak, however, Seto could see the reason he'd had it on in the first place.. His face was littered with scratched, shallow and deep, including one that ran dangerously close to his left eye. Where the skin had knit together to heal, the corner of his eye had been pinched together. There was a bruise on his left cheek as well.

It only took a moment for Seto to piece together which title belonged to whom, and he scoffed. "You all have names, then?" The first he had heard of such a thing.

"We have the Items," Ryou said. "Like it or not, we're legends." He took his seat next to Seto, crossing his arms in front of himself and sighing. "I am The Wanderer."

"I don't have time for such childish things," Seto said.

"No one does, but the childish things are the most fun. They remind us of who we used to be, and who we could have been."

Bakura's attitude was beginning to grate on Seto's nerves. That had been the kind of talk he'd had to endure as a duelist; everyone had spoken in riddles, no one willing to come right out and tell anyone else what had been happening. Not that he would have been inclined to believe any of that crap back then, but it the vagueness and puzzling words had not been a strong motivator for him to investigate.

"Quiet, please, Ryou," Yuugi said simply, and 'the wanderer' spoke no more.

"Ryou and I have been waiting," Ishizu began, "for you all to arrive. Seto, I'm not going to hold you any longer than need be. If you have any questions that you were not confident enough to ask over radio, please ask them now."

Most of his questions had already been answered. "Unless you all know how we got into this mess in the first place, or how we can solve it, there's no point."

Ryou's expression was a frown, but he raised his hand as though they were in a classroom before speaking. "There are some scientists, in many places, oddly enough, working. Some of them have died in the process but others have not. Popular theory is that this was some American experiment gone wrong, but there is no proof."

Considering how difficult it had been to look up information while things were developing, Seto wanted to hear more about that. "How do you know?"

"I've spoken to them," Ryou said simply, and explained his story. He had been in Domino when the quarantine had taken place in Japan and, with the help of his charm, had escaped the country on a boat containing a few government personnel. Upon landing in China the ship was attacked by people who had assumed that the personnel had the resources to move elsewhere. Many of them died, and soon enough that area had been beset by the Walkers. Once he had discovered the ability to repel them, he hitched a ride back to Japan, to whom some of the wealthy Chinese had attempted to flee to.

"Then I delivered the Eye to The Coward, and I set off once again. I've been wandering ever since. Sometimes I find cars or trains. They make trips much easier."

At first Seto had thought nothing of the reference to another person. Certainly there were many cowards in these times; he had seen travelers turn on each other, even when the looters had been in control of Domino. Brothers and sisters fight for food or money, men threaten families for their own survival. But when the rest of the table made eye contact with each other, he felt inclined to ask.

"I don't particularly care about your life's story, Bakura, but who is The Coward?" He must have had one the charms. "How many of these things are there? Who else had them?"

Ishizu piped up. "That was the reason why we are convening today. You see, we have a bit of an... issue."

Seto was beginning to grow cross with them. "So you called me here, _bribed_ me here, basically, to help you solve your problems?"

Slowly, Yuugi held up a hand, and although Ishizu had been about to retort, she fell silent. The King, indeed.

"We have to talk about things one at a time," he declared. "There are seven Millennium Items. Pegasus... he is the coward. He has the Eye. The same one that he used to cheat in his duel with you. The one that can read minds. Another we have never known the location of and the man who has it could be anywhere, but he wouldn't cause any trouble. We aren't worried about him."

Since Yuugi was the only person at the table willing to speak frankly, Seto addressed him rather than the table at large. "I'm not an idiot. Do you know where the last one is?" He didn't know how those... things worked. If just anyone could pick them up and use them, there could be a big problem. How terrible would it be if some asshole had the power to keep the Walkers away from him while pillaging and murdering others for their supplies?

A short inclination of his head was the only response Yuugi gave, before he heard a heavy clunk on the table across from him.

"So the answer is yes," Seto hissed, unsure of what else to say.

On the table before him was, indeed, the last item, shaped like a large set of scales.

"This is the last Item," Marik said. "And we want to give it to you."

Yuugi went on to explain the situation in full. The 'Items' had been resting in a crypt with Marik, being guarded. It hadn't been meant to leave its place there, but with Seto being discovered as being alive (thanks to Ishizu's necklace, he made sure to add), they wanted to give it to him. Unfortunately, Seto had never believed in the capacity of the Items before and it was not a transaction that could take place via mail, exactly. In addition to that, Seto, they said was connected with the Items and it very likely that he would be able to use it.

If nothing else was a relief, it was knowing that these charms couldn't fall into the wrong hands.

"So... you want me to take that thing," Seto said.

"To put it simply, yes," Ryou said. "Not only do we trust you, but you could actually use it. I can't imagine that it's convenient, living in that Tower. Domino probably had a lot of resources that you can't get to, or that others' can't either. You could do good with it."

"You _would_ do good with it," Yuugi amended.

"I'm... out of my element here," Seto said. "I don't believe this. What's the catch, Yuugi? I never had one of these things. Never. And now you just want me to take it back to Domino and... just _use it_?" The creases on Yuugi's brow bothered him, and so did the injuries on Ryou's face.

"No," Yuugi said. "For you, there are no consequences, only the difficulty of adjusting to using it."

"We wanted to have Marik go with you, to teach you." Ishizu's voice was hopeful.

"That is why she offered you fuel," Yuugi added.

He wasn't sure what to think of this. Seto was being offered a valuable resource, and being asked for nothing in return. The smart choice would have been to accept the offer, the fuel and the clothes, and be done with it. But he had seen the victims, crying and clinging to an existence that was not nearly qualified to be called a life. And he had arrived bare-handed, selfish and arrogant about their wasting his time and fuel.

"Ishizu," he asked. "Do you have running water here?"

"...yes. Is that important?"

Marik crossed his arms. "This trip wasn't just a risk for you, Kaiba. We all left people behind, some of whom wouldn't know the end of a gun from the handle, to hold their own at home until we get back. No one knows we're gone - what if we come back and everything's destroyed? We know you have people you care about back there. It's lucky, really, that we managed to even pull this together. But we have an advantage. These Items are the only thing keeping us from being overrun. There's a chance that, whatever the hell's going on, we can survive it. Why do you think Ryou wanders around? Just for the scenery? No. It's to help other people. Not everyone can use this, but more people than we want to can. Evil can be done with it. You've seen it because I've done it. The Coward has done it."

Bitterly, Yuugi muttered, "...and run off, too."

Clearing his throat, Ryou decided to speak. "If there was more time to give you to make this decision, we would give it to you. Unfortunately, those aren't our circumstances."

Looking around at the faces around the table, Seto realized that they weren't going to let him leave without taking the damned thing, not if they could help it. As angry as he was about this, and as unprepared, Seto had no inclination to go about shooting or blowing up compounds over a golden trinket, let alone one that could actually _help_ him.

"...and you want Marik to teach me how to use it?" he asked. "So that I don't accidentally blow myself up?"

He would have preferred Yuugi, but knew that such a possibility didn't exist. They had offered Marik because they had Marik to spare, or because his people were better equipped, as the earlier commentary about weaponry had indicated. Marik's arrogance may have infuriated him ages ago, but Bakura truly unsettled him. Not only the scars, but simply having known him. For a brief time, they had attended school together and Bakura had not been very impressive then, neither by his stature or the rumors floating around about his occult activities. Now that the dead _were_ actually rising, Seto found the coincidence a little overwhelming for his faculties.

So it was decided. In exchange for fuel (which was not the best grade for his machine but could make do in a pinch or he found nothing else), coats and other insulated clothing, trap-making materials and some preserved food, Seto Kaiba would take Marik back to the Tower for approximately one week. He would be leaving behind a few weapons and ammo for Ishizu as well as some better quality knives, as well as half of the food that Marik had provided. He couldn't have thought of taking all of it with him, not when it was obvious that the people here needed food. He would fly back the way that he had come. Bakura had requested to be dropped off with Yuugi. Never having been to American since this whole matter began, he sought to 'do some good there' as he had put it.

The dismissed each other for the night, as Seto would need a full day's rest before he could prepare to fly again and he wanted to leave as soon as possible. The trip back would take nearly a day to complete. Several of the others asked to speak to him in private, including Ishizu, but he refused. Being pressured to take equipment that he didn't need or want (despite various usages) had not been the way that he'd wanted to conclude his journey there, with his hands full of things that others needed and he did not (at least, not as much), and the whole situation felt wrong to him.

Marik, for his part, had wanted to start teaching him about the use of the Item already but Seto wasn't ready for that. He didn't even want to touch, unsure of what the effects of its magic might bring. Though no one had shown considerable signs of injury from using their items, the faces of the others still haunted him. Aiming to succeed in everything he did was something that Seto prided himself on, and when it came to being prepared for the Walkers he couldn't have done a better job, even without the proper information. No one else had been so lucky and that, despite his triumph, was a difficult thing to accept.

As though he didn't already have enough to worry about, his sleep was cut short by the rousing of others, darked-faced men who spoke a language that he was unfamiliar with. Though they made him uneasy, Seto trusted Ishizu and the others, and he didn't believe that they would lead him into a trap of any sort. None of them could fly a jet, in any case, and aside from weapons Seto had not brought anything of value.

Shots, accompanied by screams broke out in the distance, and Seto didn't need to know another language to interpret those. Walkers. Scrambling with the others, he ran out into the hall only to hear more gunshots. Looking out of a window, he could see a group of walkers in the distance, six or seven of them, approaching the hospital.

_Where is Ishizu_? He wondered, his blood running cold.

Bakura met him in one of the winding halls of the hospital and led the way. "It's fine," he told Seto. "Just a scare." As they proceeded he shouted instructions to the men at the windows, and they answered back, oddly enough in Japanese - Seto was able to understand them.

He had thought the items capable of keeping the Walkers away; there was no reason for them to be within walking distance of the compound.

Ryou seemed to know his way around the hospital, and soon enough they had arrived in another lobby area on the third floor, rollaway beds and sullied blankets strewn all over the floor. Ishizu was seated in a small area in a corner, slumped back and paler than she had been even at the meeting. Marik and Yuugi were kneeling beside her.

"What was she doing?" Ryou asked.

"Reading. She wanted to know if there would be any opposition for you on your way out later on this morning."

"She's foolish," Ryou said, adding a swear for good reason.

"No," Seto said, having seen more than enough. "No. I'm not taking one of those things with me, not if it's going to do that."

"You're not helping," Marik snapped at him, and stood. "I don't remember you being so easily shaken, Kaiba."

"Not so much shaken as not wanting to die here and leave my Tower to rot."

"Using the magic drained her," Ryou said, "because she hasn't slept in three days. Not because of the Item, you idiot. The monsters are back now. No one else was repelling them because we weren't expecting her to collapse in the middle of a vision in the middle of the night. Ra, Ishizu," he added, and the rest of his grumblings were addressed to her as she steadied her breathing.

The insult did not sting, though Marik's quip held a bit of bite in its bark. He had jumped to a conclusion without asking all the questions that could have been first.

"If you panic like that," Marik said, "they'll get you." His inappropriate smirk made Seto want to punch him.

"You need to sleep," Yuugi said. "We can't leave if you're not safe."

As much as Seto wanted to argue that point, he couldn't. There was no way that in good conscience that he could vacate the premises knowing that they would be overrun.

Marik shook his head. "Change of plans. We don't have time for this. Kaiba, you're coming with me. I'm going to teach you how to use this thing in a few days instead of a week. You'll need it and Shizu needs the time to rest. I'm not leaving my sister and you're not leaving without this Ra-damned Item. Yuugi, you can send a message out on the radio to your people, my people and Kaiba's people to let them know that we're delayed but alive. Ryou, you're just going to be stuck here until we leave and you're going to have to deal with. Pick someone to stick by and stick by them or stay out of the way. Go out and practice hunting. Go fight a bear. Whatever the fuck it is that you do when you're not saving damsels in distress. Someone get her into a bed, _now_."

The look in his eyes, the concern for his sister, is what stopped Seto from arguing.

"Calm down," Yuugi instructed softly.

"When this is all said and done, you'll drop everyone off where they're supposed to be Kaiba. Ryou will go with me, and you can go back to your Tower alone. Yuugi, when you talk to Rishid ask him to check for plane fuel. I'm sure there's some around. Tell him to be careful exploring because I'm not there." His eyes met Seto's, and there was anger in his voice as he said, "You're awake now. Go get your coat and your gun and let's go. We're going out."

"I'm going," Bakura piped up. Reaching into a pocket of his peacoat, he smiled. "I have my knife."

Conviction or not, Seto wasn't going to allow himself to be bossed around by a boy trying to avoid exploding into a temper tantrum. "And what makes you think I'm going to do that?" Crossing his arms, he wanted to make it clear that Marik was not the person in charge.

"Because if you don't, so help me Ra I'll shoot you."

"Marik!" That was the first time Yuugi had raised his voice since he had first spoken. "Stop it!"

Threats of violence weren't going to do that boy any good; the fact of the matter was that if Marik had had the balls, he would have done it already. "I'd like to see you try," Seto retorted.

Bakura stepped between them, still smiling. "Please, boys. I don't want to get involved with this. I really, really don't. You don't want me to, either. So how about you both go put your hunting jammies on and I'll meet you in the first floor lobby in a few minutes. There's nothing outside anymore, and we can go find perhaps some dinner with meat on its bones. Doesn't that sound like a good idea?"

Seto turned to head in the direction he had entered from, and was glad to see Marik leave in the opposite direction. _Great_, he was stuck here with a psyche ward of people with magic Egyptian charms.

"Do you remember the way back?" a voice called after a few steps. Bakura, of course. In all honesty, Seto had been the first to turn away _because_ of him; the way that Bakura handled himself put Seto on edge, and that smile upon inspection had seemed a little... unhinged.

_Those scars have the stories to match._

Seto didn't answer him, and Bakura simply led the way back to hall where they met.

"Don't mind Marik," Bakura told him. As soon as the two of the entered the room that Seto had slept in, anyone else inside slowly vacated. While it was nice knowing that he wasn't the only one who could feel unsettled by Bakura's presence, being left alone in a room alone with him was not what he wanted, either. "Marik simply has a short leash. Things were not easy for him in Egypt. He has had to work hard for his authority."

Scoffing, Seto snickered. "I wouldn't listen to him either."

"It's hard," Bakura said, his features dropping as he stood by the door. "When you have what people need and everyone constantly wants to take advantage of you, undermine your authority. Could you imagine how your Tower would be if everyone constantly questioned your ability to lead?"

Chewing the inside of his lip, he decided to drop the facade and be serious since Bakura clearly wanted to have a serious conversation. "Flying off the handle like that is no way for a leader to be. He's exactly the same as before, shouting and screaming to get his way."

"I wouldn't be so sure, Seto Kaiba."

"And you would know, how? Have you seen him lead? Were you there?"

"Now _you're_ being exactly the same. We haven't seen you in action, either, but we knew that you were in charge and not just a compound member. I've seen you clutch that gun. Do you even know how to fire a gun? How many times have you done it? Just how much protecting have you done?" He paused for just long enough to let Seto know that he was going to provide his own answers. "But that doesn't matter. Sometimes, violence doesn't make a leader; and yet, sometimes it does. Things function differently out here. Out there, even. You should not be so quick to judge. A bit quick to rouse, yes, Marik is certainly. But he knows what he's talking about, and he doesn't skip over pleasantries without good reason. Letting you question every decision would have just wasted time."'

Reminded of Mokuba, who simply wanted to gnash and kill and bludgeon, Seto shook his head. "Acting first and asking questions later is not the way to react."

"Until it is. There are just as many times where you should do one as you should do the other. Just ask me. Look at these scars!" Bakura pointed at his face. "Most of these are from my travels. There are quite a few times when I had tried to parlay my way through the decisions of tyrants or cruel people - and animals, on occasion, but nevermind that - and these are the result. Would you like to guess at what percentage these scars came from attacking first? I'll tell you, it's remarkably close to zero."

Dressing without much more conversation, Seto armed himself with his shotgun, bullets and three knives.

"Is that all?" Bakura marveled. "You must be very confident. Would you mind if I stopped by my room on the way down? I tend to take all the weapons that I can carry."

'All the weapons I can carry' ended up being a knapsack nearly as tall as Bakura himself was. How Bakura was able to tote it around was a wonder. The pack shook with the sound of metal chafing against itself, and Bakura had the audacity to blush. How long had it been since he'd seen another person do _that_?

"It's a bit noisy, I think. Maybe I'll unpack a few things." When Bakura emerged from the room again, the sack was much smaller, and when he moved did not make any noticeable sound.

Seto wanted to ask what he kept in there but didn't want to give away his interest. It was more obvious than ever that Bakura was some functional variety of crazy, and he would not admit that he was interested in such a person. It did not bode well for his conscious. He had already broken too many rules - believing in the Walkers, in the 'Millennium Items' - he wasn't sure if he could accept having to concede to the existence of anything else.

As they had agreed, Marik was waiting for at the entrance, hood over his face and a small sack in his hands. The warmth that emanated from it told Seto that it was the Scales.

"You're going to have to take this. Holding it is the only way to see if it's going to choose you," Marik said. Afterward, he grumbled, "and I'm sorry, earlier. I just hate it when plans don't go the way you want, and I wasn't going to leave these people here while they were in danger."

Rather than apologizing for his response, which Seto believe did not warrant an apology, he said something pleasing. "I wasn't going to leave them either."

"Good, good," Bakura chimed in. "Group hug?"

The suggestion was just too ludicrous, and Seto couldn't help staring. "What is _wrong_ with you?"

"More things than you'd want to know."

"Ryou, shut up," Marik snapped. "Seriously, Kaiba. I'm going to need you to touch this. You may experience a bit of discomfort, but nothing else I don't think."

"You don't _think_?" Seto was seriously becoming bothered by the lack of exact information there was concerning these Items and their effects.

"Look, every Item bonds differently to the person who wields it, so I can't tell you exactly what's going to happen. I have the Rod. It's a different Item. Different experience. You'll just have to trust us when we say that it's safe. It's either going to bond or it's not. If it's anything like mine, you'll feel a warm fuzzy glow."

Bakura raised his hand. "Mine was different."

Marik rolled his eyes. "Yours _was_."

Running his hands across his face, Seto snatched the Scales from Marik's hands just to end their conversation. Nothing happened, and he blinked.

"Nothing?" Marik asked.

"Nothing."

"Fuck."

Seto chewed the inside of his cheek. "This is why I don't believe in magic. It's all a bunch of hogwash."

"Until you see it work, really," Bakura chimed in.

"It's probably not working because you don't believe in it," Marik said with a crooked smile.

Still, Marik insisted that Seto hold the damned thing as they trekked into the outdoors. The wind was blowing enough to a nuisance, biting into his face whenever he faced it; but it wasn't snowing. They had a clear line of sight in all directions, which was nice.

"I hate snow," Seto declared, and felt quite good about saying it. With Marik and Bakura there with their working Items, he could tread without fear of a direct attack.

"I'd love it if it weren't so cold," Bakura added. "Or freezing. Or windy. Or mushy. Mmm. Nevermind. I guess I don't like it at all."

Ignoring Bakura, Marik began what he felt was a lesson. "The first thing that you need to know about them," he rose his voice as the wind picked up, "is that they all have different abilities. I've had to look over these things since I was a kid, so I do actually know about that. There are shared ones and unique ones for each Item, and it's important that you know what yours does so that you concentrate on the right thing while you're using its power. We'll start on the stuff that's useful first, because, well that could help you not die one day maybe."

No one else spoke until they were far away from the Hospital, having walked the distance to Seto's Blue Eyes craft. There were sparse trees surrounding the area, and a few spaces for cover here and there, but nothing that would help a large group.

"The forests are further out," Bakura stated, as though he had been able to read Seto's mind.

The jet had made a lot of noise when it landed, and he found it strange that they hadn't come across at least a Walker or two at this point.

"You're not worried?" he asked. "This place should be swarming with them."

"The Rod drives them off as I walk," Marik told him. "I'm repelling them."

"And you're going to teach me how to do that?"

"First thing's first, you gotta know the basics. Just so you know, there's no worry of blowing yourself up with your Item. Just... not being able to protect yourself or the people around you. That's the worst. Don't be lulled into complacency. Even if you've got the Item with you, arm your companions to the teeth. Just look at Ryou. He travels by himself and he still carries an armory with him."

It explained what was in the bag before he had emptied it. Turning to Bakura to ask about just what weapons he had, he saw that the man was fiddling with a crossbow, something that Seto hadn't seen in years, let alone an operational one.

"Being distracted or injured can disturb your concentration and you should never _rely_ on the Item. They're powerful but depend on you, and you are fallible. Everyone is. It keeps the monsters away but not bullets or knives."

"I get it."

"Your Item, if it figures itself out while you're here, has... er, special abilities."

Bakura laughed. "You sound like the introduction to a video game."

Marik frowned. Although Bakura was clearly disturbed mentally, Seto agreed with him.

"Whatever. Look, fine, we'll speed through this and see if it's any easier for you. To keep the walkers away you just imagine them being pushed away. Envision a forcefield, if you will, an invisible one. Once you stop thinking about it, it goes away. Sounds hard, but isn't, since most of us want the monsters to stay the hell away from us. So far as your Item's special ability, it's shaped like a scale because its capable of weighing the hearts of men and banishing their souls."

Seto shook his head. "What?" Marik had spoken so quickly that he hadn't been able to understand it all. "Weighing what?"

"You know, souls, spirits, that sort of stuff." The response was spoken as though it were an everyday thing. Something typical and normal.

Bakura continued laughing. Seto simply stared at him, floored, and waited for him to continue. Marik stared back for a time, as though he were challenging Seto, before he did.

"You can judge if someone's heart is good or evil. That's what it does. Everything else should come naturally. The Items kind of admit a glow that only you can see - well, sometimes anyway - when you're using it. It also feels warm."

"I can't do this," Seto said, holding the Scale out and away from himself. Banishing people's souls? No one deserved to have that sort of ability, and it was probably that sort of thinking that had started the Walkers' creation in the first place.

"If you're wondering if you'll accidentally kill anyone, the answer is no. You have to desperately want that person to go away, and to be honest, I'm not going to teach you quite how to use that ability. What you can do, though, is press it to a person's heart to see what sort of person they are. A feather will appear on one side, nothing on the other. If the empty side starts to weigh itself down, the degree to which that they do will tell you about what that person's done so far. The Scale tends to ignore things like yelling obscenities and tends to tip for things like stealing and killing."

There was a flaw in the logic of that, Seto wanted to point it out. "I can't even say that I've technically not stolen, or killed. Everyone's stealing things now, and we're killing Walkers."

"I spy..." Bakura held up his crossbow in front of him, lining up a shot.

"One of them?" Marik asked.

"Dinner." Glove covered hands pulled the trigger. Immediately after the arrow let fly, Bakura took off, following it.

When Marik didn't move, Seto didn't either, and they watched the dark spot that was Bakura dart off.

Seto took the opportunity to ask, "What is wrong with him?"

"Honestly? A lot of shit," was a response, and when the two of them made eye contact, Marik was not smiling or joking. "He went through a lot of stuff, back when dueling was all we did. He didn't get lucky like you. He wasn't unrelated to the legend of the Pharaoh. I won't bore you to with the finer details of it all, because at the time you didn't care and you caring about what happened then now doesn't mean a Ra-damned thing... but long story short, Ryou didn't get the good end of the stick with his Item. None of the others except Yuugi's was like this, but, his was haunted with a bad spirit."

Rejecting that explanation mentally, Seto decided to keep quiet. There were simply some things that he wasn't willing to believe, and a cop out excuse for a weirdo being weird was not one of them. Having nothing good to say, though, he kept his mouth shut.

"Ryou wasn't himself for a while. He did bad things while he was possessed. You've watched him duel in that condition, as a matter of fact.I would suggest that you don't point that scale at him. His Item wasn't haunted by a Pharaoh, like Yuugi's. He got the villain instead. Anyway, details. Good vanquishes evil, Ryou gets his life back but has no one to share it with. Any friends he had were... well, let's just say that they didn't want to be friends anymore. Then the undead start walking and Ryou knew about it before the rest of us."

Because he'd been into the occult? "How?"

"Because the spirit that possessed was a killer. He's summon the undead before, just to fuck with people, torture them. I had a conversation with him, myself. He was not a nice man." Holding his hand up before Seto could object, he continued. "No, he can't put them back. Anyway, what Ryou did wasn't scientific - he took energy from the Ring and used it to control empty husks, make them move around. They weren't aware, not like these. Still, Ryou can _control_ these ones, too."

"So... you're saying that he can make them walk."

"He likes making them dance, actually," Marik corrected. "But the point is that he had the ability because of the spirit in his Item."

"And what is supposed to make me believe that all of what you're saying is true."

"We haven't been attacked by those things that you call Walkers in nearly an hour's time, and Ryou's... unique personality. Controlling them often makes him remember things that he was forced to do. How would you feel if you had dreams of committing horrible acts, only to find out that they were true?"

"That's actually a question I've asked myself," Seto said, looking away. There was no telling what the process of turning was like; he'd heard tales of those who had been bitten, those who had had arms and legs amputated in an attempt to stop it. He had no clue himself what it would have been like to transform, to suddenly lose his sense of will and want to tear the flesh from every living thing in the room. He wouldn't allow himself to even get that far in the process. "I'd shoot myself."

"Ah, but he's not one of _those _monsters. He's another sort entirely."

For the first time since they had become reacquainted, Marik had given Seto something to think about.

"I tend to think of him as just a little cracked," Marik added hastily. "I can't say he's broken, because - well, can you really insult a man who walks around saving people and asking for nothing in return?"

Bakura was heading back, now, and he was holding what looked like the bloodied flank of some sort of animal. How had he been able to see. "It's going to be delicious," he said to them. "Oh, and there are some of those things a little further back. I'm sure that they had wandered off from the plane when they realized no one was in it."

The rest of the information about the Item was unsurprising: It could apparently enhance senses if there was focus spent on doing so long enough, and so long as it was making contact with his body directly or indirectly, it could be used. Marik preferred to hold his Rod, and the Ring and the Puzzles were chained around Bakura and Yuugi's necks, respectively. The trip had, ultimately, turned into a hunt for the evening's dinner, as both of the others felt unable to accept accommodations from the others in Ishizu's compound.

When they returned for the evening, he'd caught a few birds, Bakura's rabbit and, as was their luck, a fox. Seto had unfortunately tasted the wild birds of Domino, and a few hares here or there, but mostly they ate fish when there was time enough to catch them. Fox was not something that he'd had and nor was he willing to try it, especially not after Bakura had described it gamy. The five of them ate together, again, alone and without interference from any of the others in the Hospital.

"So they just... they don't question anything?" Seto inquired after Bakura had gone on and on about the day's events. "They're not worried about their resources or me taking up space. If we were at the Tower, we'd have quite a few people... arguing with me for letting you in without approval."

"These people are humble," Ishizu answered. "And they are awed by the abilities of my Necklace. They speak neither Egyptian or Japanese, and yet we are able to communicate. I can tell them the future and keep the fiends away-if you were in their position, would you question my decisions?"

"Absolutely," was his answer.

Ishizu smiled. "Not everyone looks a gift horse in the mouth."

After they had eaten, Seto had volunteered for one of the nightly guard shifts. He couldn't sleep, and considering that there wouldn't be anything to worry about in terms of the Walkers, he would end up being idle either way. At least in this case, if there were any surprises, he could meet them and perhaps help save a life or otherwise be useful. Yuugi agreed to take the shift with him, and stood next to him by one of the windows on the south side of the building.

"I take it you want to talk with me," Seto said without hesitation.

A curt nod was what he received in response. "The Scale didn't take, did it?"

That had sounded more like a statement, and not a question."Were you expecting it not to?"

"There was a small chance. The Rod had been yours, after all. I couldn't blame it for realizing that the Item you were supposed to have was nearby. You went hunting with Marik, right?"

Seto frowned. More talk that he didn't understand, and from Yuugi, no less. It wasn't like him to be so indirect and it never had unless they were dueling. As he swept his gaze over Yuugi's features, he corrected himself: everything here was so unlike Yuugi. The slumped stature, the quiet voice and the bearing, the way that he walked was much too old for his age, and even when he stood with the others he looked lonely. The knives in his belt and the handgun made the image all the more disturbing, but in a different way from Bakura; Yuugi was very much there, mind sound and sharp, albeit weighed down by all of the responsibilities that he had taken.

He was looking at himself, he realized, and that was nothing short of wrong.

"Can you all stop with the cryptic talk? You want me to know about the Item, right? I'm not going to use something that I don't know anything about. A wasted resource is as good as not having had one at all."

A gentle chuckle sounded soon after. "You sound so wise, Seto."

Being on a first name basis with Yuugi was another strange detail. "Spare me."

"The Millennium Items have a complicated history, and quite frankly you weren't interested in it before. Can you blame anyone for not being willing to reach out to you with that explanation now? If the situation weren't so bleak, I'm sure that you wouldn't want to listen to us anyway."

That was a fact that could not be denied.

"People change," Seto declared quietly. "...in small ways."

"Now, that's not the Seto Kaiba I know," Yuugi chuckled. "But I'll get to the point of it. Marik told you a bit about the Items, but I want to make sure that you know what you're getting into. We're friends, after all. I don't want you to feel cheated."

The frown carved itself on Seto's features despite his best efforts to stop it. "Where are your friends?" Asking about them was the best that he could do to move in the other direction, to make him look a bit less like an asshole. Not having anything in common with Yuugi's friends and his lack of interest in them wasn't something that should have affected this moment. They were people, whose livelihood had been altered by these dark times. Perhaps he had never cared for them as Yuugi's companions, but they were valuable because they were the few people who were left.

Yuugi frowned as well. "I don't want to talk about them, if that's okay."

That sounded like the story behind it was fraught with disaster. Seto wanted to know, but he couldn't bring himself to be so intrusive. "...are they are least alive?"

"Most of them. As I've said, though, I really don't want to talk about them."

"I can respect that."

Looking off into the distance, Yuugi sighed deeply. "Do you have the Scale with you?"

Rather than answering, Seto shrugged off his pack and fished it out. Marik probably would have killed him if he left it anywhere away from him.

"You should try to use it again. Marik says you can use it to weigh hearts, and I can confirm that he's the expert on them. You just have to focus."

"This just seems so ridiculous. Focus on what? I feel like I'm trying to make magic happen."

"...Seto, that's exactly what you're doing. Just try. If the Scale is supposed to show you if there's evil in my heart. Wouldn't that be a useful thing to know?"

Sighing, Seto inclined the tip of the Scale in Yuugi's direction.

"Are you thinking about it?" Yuugi asked.

He decided to be honest. "No."

"Come on, Seto."

Frustrated with this charade, he tried his best to do as he had been told, to think about what sort of person Yuugi was. It seemed like such a waste; Yuugi, for all of his meddling and his constant need to challenge him, was a good person. He'd put his neck on the line for people that he didn't know and stood for what was right, and that was before this whole mess. Yuugi had even stood up to him. There was no doubt about what sort of person Yuugi Mutou was.

The metal felt warm in his hand, and he supposed that meant that this was all working.

"Seto," Yuugi said softly. "Look."

He hadn't realized that his eyes had been closed. When he opened them, there was no supernatural glow, no flashy display of light. But the Scale's base felt nearly burning in his hand. On one side, he could see a feather, and on the other, there was nothing. Seto was sure that there was some sort of symbolism to it, but he was not well versed enough in Egyptian lore to know exactly what it meant. The empty side was tilted up, elevated over the feather.

Yuugi smiled again. "Saving the world rigs the scale I'm afraid. Keep focusing like that you'll have it." Seto pulled the Scale away from him, and the metal in his hand grew cold. With that taken care of, Yuugi practically ordered him to bed, uncaring about the fact that they were in the middle of a watchshift.

The scene was frustrating to him, in hindsight; although he appreciated the help that he had been given, and begrudgingly the fact that he had been forced to reassess his personal boundaries of belief, it all seemed entirely too convenient for him. Everything came naturally for Yuugi, even down to teach others about what he knew. Seto had been forced to work for everything that he he had. There had not been any magical charms there to make things easier for him, to give him a voice of reason or guide him or tell him what to do. If he hadn't become suspicious and done an investigation of things for himself he, as well as Mokuba, would be dead.

His sleep was restless, and full of dreams that he could not possibly hope to understand. Duel monsters come to life, images of people in strange clothing participating in battles; at some point he caught a glimpse of the Blue Eyes White Dragon, something that he had thought he would never see the image of again. Yuugi and Ishizu both made an appearance in the dream, albeit briefly. The scenes were fragmented, like a storybook with pages ripped out, and when he awoke the next morning he could barely remember them.

There was no doubt that they were connected to the Scale, somehow.

Without delay, upon waking he raced to his belongings, next to the mattress where he'd slept, for the Item. It felt warm against his hand, the same way that it had the night before. When he placed it back in his pack, the bag itself grew warm to the touch. He very quickly left, his roommates staring at him strangely before muttering about the day's chores.

As he made his way through the halls, Seto found that he could suddenly understand the conversations of everyone in the facility. A few groups in halls were talking about rations, glad for the good food that Marik had given them. Some of them openly spoke about Ishizu, grateful for the fact that she could keep the Walkers away, though they were referred to as the undead.

_It translates_, Seto confirmed to himself.

Was there anything that this cheater's Item couldn't do?

He wandered around for a short while before realizing that he had no clue where he was going, not having memorized any of the locations in the hospital. All of the hallways looked the same, and as he turned each corner it seemed that the only distinguishing feature may have been a reception desk here or there; he must have looked silly, stalking around with a golden Scale in held in his hand. But he continued on, determined to discuss his newfound success of the Item with someone. Marik had wanted to instruct him on how to use it; perhaps he would start there.

"Good morning." That voice made the hairs on the back of his neck stand, and that was how he identified Bakura.

"Bakura," he acknowledged.

"I've been meaning to talk to you about that, by the way. You should call me Ryou. Bakura carries... some bad 'Juju', as they would stay in the 'States. Bad memories."

And the madness was beginning _so _early. "...it's your last name."

"Yes, and I'd prefer my first, if you don't mind."

"How could your _own_ name—" Seto caught himself, realizing that he would likely receive no answers for his inquiries. "Fine. I'll try. Ryou. Happy?"

"Very. Now, I believe you're looking for someone? You've been going around the place like you're lost. My Item can do that - track the whereabouts of the others. Quite handy sometimes. It's how I found Ishizu, after all."

Words from Marik from the day before echoed through his mind, something about it not being a good idea to weigh Bakura's heart. Normally, he was quite a stickler for rules, but Bakura's strange tendencies were something he felt he had the right to investigate.

Whipping himself around Seto touched the tip of the Scale to Bakura's chest.

Bakura did not look angry or cross at the gesture; in fact he smiled. "Oh, goodness! Does this mean that you've gotten it to work?"

The empty side of the scale began to tilt up, the same way that Yuugi's had, then suddenly plunged down. The side with the feather was lifted as far as the Scale would allow.

"Ah, I see how it works," Bakura said sadly, all cheeriness gone from his tones.

The scale pitched up again, as though it wasn't sure where it should have been, before lowering. The pattern repeated. Seto wondered, for a moment, whether he was using it properly.

"This reaction makes sense," Bakura said. "It has nothing to do with you. Come on, you'll want to see Marik about that."

"What does that make sense?" Seto asked. "Why would it make sense that it isn't working properly?"

Rolling his shoulders, Bakura reached into his coat. When his hand emerged, he was holding a pair of red dice, twenty-sided. "These used to belong to me. There are souls trapped inside." Seto supposed his face gave away his disbelief, and a smile graced Bakura's features. "It makes no sense for you to belief in the Items and not anything else. I'm not lying. There are souls of good men in here, though some bad, too. Unfortunately, I didn't put them there. So what happens when one person is controlled by another and is made to do terrible things? The Scale isn't sure."

"Marik said you were possessed." Seto figured that there was little point in putting his cards on the table; he had already been warned against taking action and he had done it anyway.

"Marik was very correct. He usually is. Now, shall we go?"

But Seto wanted more answers than were being offered, and he budged. "How could you have been possessed?"

"Subjugated would be a better word, quite frankly. These Items do a bit more than simply give you magic. They allow you a way to explore your own soul, to face your demons and see what truly makes you tick. They open the doors - what seems like a dream really isn't, and what seems real is truly what you need to be suspicious of. Alas, my Ring was part of a much larger game, and I became a pawn."

Gripping the Scale tightly, Seto hissed, "I'm tired of all the riddles. Can someone just tell me plainly what happened so that I can understand something?"

Bakura tilted his head to the side, frowning. Grey hair sullied with dirt fell over his face and he brushed the strands back. "But we have been telling you the truth. You just don't want to believe it. What good is the truth when you're just going to question it? The truth is that I was possessed by a spirit hiding in my Ring that wanted to destroy the world. That means that he did bad things. Asking how or why doesn't change it from being the truth, does it? Now," he licked his lips, and even that simple gesture looked much more intimidating when Bakura did it, "could we get a move on. I'm feeling the need to _kill_ something and I like you, Seto Kaiba."

Yet Bakura stood there, waiting, blinking several more times in the span of a minutes than anyone could possibly need to. Seto couldn't meet his eyes, but kept his gaze fixed on him.

"Get a move on," Bakura said after some time had passed.

"...I don't know where I am. You were supposed to—"

"Oh, right. Yes, of course. Silly me." Knocking himself on the head as though it would sort something out in there, Bakura took the lead and move forward.

Seto allowed quite a bit of distance between them before he followed.

Marik was fitting knives into his boots when they came across his quarters. It was too crowded for either Seto or Bakura to step inside, so they waited silently.

"I hope you're ready. We're going to take out some Walkers today," is what Marik said when he emerged. "It'll help make this area a bit safer. Most of them seem to be hiding in the woods."

This made Seto uneasy, but he said nothing.

"Have you heard about Kaiba getting the Scale to work?" Bakura gushed, as though he were truly excited to know that Seto had caught the hang of it.

Marik smirked. "Restless night, then?"

"Something like that," Seto answered, not really willing to discuss that with him. Marik may have had all of the right answers, as Yuugi had put it, but he didn't need to know everything.

"Oh, well, the point is that you can use it now. You should probably get some practice with it. Ishizu's been in bed all day and all night and it's very likely that we'll leave tomorrow."

"Dinner first," Bakura added, "before we get into it with those ruffians."

Seto held back a small smile at the idea of Walkers being referred to as 'ruffians'. The very idea was ludicrous.

The trio trekked their way past the Blue Eyes jet, and Seto was glad to see that they hadn't been tampered with. They continued walking until the sparse trees became the forest that they had been looking for. It was a dangerous sort of environment, where most things were covered by either the foliage or blowing snow.

"Right," Marik said. "I'm not sure how many of them are out here, so I'm not going to be so stupid as to shoot or anything, but... anyway. We should find a clearing."

"We're awfully far out," Seto pointed out. The Hospital hadn't been in sight for quite some time, and although some of that was because of the terrain, covered in snow drifts, a large part of it was distance.

"I have a radio. I can broadcast an emergency if necessary. But we should be fine. If not, they'll find our bodies at least, right?"

A howl sounded, and it didn't sound too distant. Beside him, Bakura began digging into his pack. to Seto's shock not only did he pull out the crossbow from the previous day, but what appeared to be some sort of warhammer. A thick, wooden stem fused at the top with some sort of steel, rough and unpolished but precisely shaped. It looked like something that would have been hung up in his father's collection of arms.

Marik seemed just as surprised. "Where did you even _get_ one of those?"

"Well, there's an interesting story behind this one but long story short - I pulled it off a dead guy." Bakura flashed that smile again, the one that Seto felt could haunt the nightmares of small children, and swung it around in his grasp. "It's more of a mallot, really. I'm afraid I'm not strong enough to carry a _real_ hammer. Those are larger than my head. Takes times to condition for that. I usually don't have that sort of time. There are some wolves in the distance, by the way. Shall we?"

"No, Ryou," Marik chided. "We're not going to engage a pack of wolves."

"How exactly can you see them?" Seto asked. Yesterday he'd been told it was a part of the Item's abilities - unless that was a unique one. "_How_ do you do it?"

"I just look," was Bakura's answer. "That's it."

"So," Marik cut in, "concentrate. Have you ever caught the bus? It's like that. Like looking down the street and trying to figure out if the bus is a few blocks away. Think of it that way."

Scowling, Seto snapped, "Do I _look_ like I've ever taken public transportation?"

"Right. Kaiba," Marik reminded himself. "Well, try anyway."

"Mmmm... some Walkers, too. East," Bakura said. "Four of them. Heading our way." He pointed.

Seto squinted in the direction that Bakura was pointing in, trying his best to see beyond the branches. His pack began to warm as he squinted in his attempt to see it. His view was expanding; he could suddenly see with clarity what would have been miniscule in his sight before, as though someone had suddenly placed a telescope in his face.

Still, he couldn't see anything moving.

His head spun with the effort of evoking long distance sight, but he reasoned that the others had had more practice with it. Setting down his hammer, Bakura let an arrow fly off into the distance and Seto strained his ears until he heard a small, distant crack. He cocked his shotgun and doubled over to try to stop from feeling lightheaded.

"Don't work too hard, there, newbie," Marik joked. He glanced over to Bakura. "Did you hit it?"

"What do you mean 'did I hit it'? Of course I did. Through the eye." Bakura scoffed, as though the idea of missing a shot was a ridiculous notion. "It's not stopping him though. I just wanted to slow them down. The impact was loud enough. Kaiba, are you alright?"

Seto wanted to glibly point out the hypocrisy in Bakura calling him by his last name, but he was too busy recovering.

"It's a little difficult at first if you haven't been able to practice, but you'll get it." Bakura was attempting to be comforting. "The Item's got to know how you think first. It's usually a little hazy while it's bonding with you."

Their words sounded a bit garbled. Seto forced himself to stand, and blinked hard, as though it would drive the strange sensation away; it would have been nice.

"We can hold them off if you want," Marik offered.

"I need to figure this out," Seto insisted.

"Well, try not to shoot me in the back while you're dealing with that. At the least you can try to keep a look out in the other direction. Do you think you could manage that?"

There was nothing Seto hated more than being the 'new person' at something. Catching onto rules or capabilities was never fun, and although Marik spoke casually being flanked by Walkers could be a matter of life or death.

"Do you want another weapon?" Bakura asked. "I have a sword in here... how's your swing? It's kind of thin, though. You'll have to be accurate..."

"We don't have time for this right now if we're going to fight them," Marik's voice was beginning to rise in what Seto could only assume was irritation. "Let's go."

Seto's head had finally settled down and he followed them as they took off toward the Walkers. They ran quite a distance, and when nearly a full minute passed without an encounter he began to wonder just how far away Bakura had been able to see. He would have to become just as good. Better. He would have to be the best.

Suddenly, Marik halted, gripping Seto's shoulder and jerking him back. The lashback nearly knocked him over. "Here," he said to Seto. "You should shoot from here. Any closer and you might get bitten."

Squinting into the distance, Seto shook his head. He could see them now, the four walking almost in a row (and one with large chunk of head missing where its eye should have been, which he assumed was Bakura's work). Bakura continued running ahead.

"If you can't shoot from this far just look behind me. A few more may be coming but I can pick them off. Just focus on keeping them away."

Taking a deep breath, Seto tried to settle himself down. He wasn't alright with this situation. He had thought, perhaps, that there would be two, maybe three Walkers, that he could practice keeping at bay. The fact that Bakura would be stupid enough to charge in with a warhammer was not something that he had counted on. Marik relying on nothing but distance to allow him an advantage was _not _something that he had counted on.

These people clearly had a death wish. Spinning in a small circle, Seto tried his best to sweep the area. He wanted to keep as many of them as away as possible, weakened abilities or not, and he was going to do it.

Marik let off a shot and a searing pain swarmed straight to Seto's head, and his hands instinctively covered his ears. His legs decided they didn't want to support him anymore and he fell to his knees, the stinging pain of the sound ringing in his ears felt like a cut on his skin. This entire endeavor had been foolish and _stupid_. No Millennium Item, no power to stave away the Walkers, was worth all of this.

"Oh Ra-damn it all, turn it off," Marik shouted at him, voice wavering as though he were underwater. He took large strides towards Seto, knelt down beside him and said quietly, "Turn it off. Think about... oh, I don't know. Headphones on your ears blocking the sound? How the fuck should I know?"

Seto winced, as Marik's voice had the tendency to rise.

"Listen, Seto. We're not going to die. Stop panicking and just actually try. Worse comes to worse I'll force them away. Bakura could easily do the same thing. Just come on."

"I don't need your pity," Seto said, grinding his teeth. "You could have given me a warning."

"Sorry about that." Marik glanced up and around before turning his attention back to Seto. "But it's okay. Your ears are going to be ringing for a little while, but other than that you're fine. No bleeding or anything."

Shrugging his shoulders to test his ability to move, Seto forced himself to stand, wincing the entire time.

"You're _sorry_ about that?" Seto bellowed. "You're going to get me killed!"

Once he was back up on his feet, Marik seemed unconcerned with him. "The same way that you can hear from far away, you can block out things too. Just so that you know." He glanced around once more. "There are two behind us, and if there are any more they're quite a ways away. We can outrun the two easily."

"What about Bakura? Is he okay?" Seto asked. He didn't particularly care if Bakura got himself killed with his craziness, but as a team he would have prefer the three of them return alive. Since he'd gotten the Item to work for him, as Marik had said, they could probably leave to go home tomorrow and Bakura would no longer be his responsibility. He wanted to be indoors where it was warm and safe, and where he wouldn't have to be responsible for the lives of people who wanted to throw them away.

That made him think of Mokuba.

"Bakura's fi—"

"AAAAARGH!"

The shout was from Bakura no doubt, and Seto promptly ignored Marik - it was obvious that his act-first-talk-later attitude wasn't going to get them anywhere. Then and there Seto decided that if Bakura was bitten or dead, he was going to put a bullet in Marik's brain. There was no excuse for letting anyone go out in that much danger without any sort of plan. Bakura being stupid wasn't a reason to let him make stupid decisions. When Mokuba wanted to go out and slaughter Walkers for his conscience's sake, Seto hadn't let him and never would. A soothed conscience wouldn't make the Walkers go away and wouldn't help anyone in the large scheme of things.

Though Seto had started jogging (rather shakily), there was no need to move very far before his vision could affix Bakura within his sight; the three of them were dark blots against the otherwise white and green landscape.

"You're an idiot, Kaiba," Marik said, slinging both his own gun and Seto's over his shoulders and trudging forward.

There were not many moments in his life where Seto could say, even with the Walkers, that anyone could peg him was complete and utterly surprised. He could usually hide it by grinding his teeth or frowning or otherwise showing a separate expression on his features. At this moment, however, he had no defense.

As the two of them approached Bakura there was more screaming and shouting, enough to make Seto's blood curdle, but it wasn't because Bakura was dying. There was a heavy _thud_ in the snow and a muffled crack as that hammer went to work right through the skull of a Walker. Two others lay motionless on the ground in a similar fashion, dislodged pieces of skull and teeth where their head used to be. The third simply had no head at all.

"Cover your ears," Marik said tersely, and he knelt again as he did before, taking careful aim.

Bakura ignored him, hammer still swinging.

Seto frowned and covered his ears with his hands. For the moment it would have to do; he had been unable to use the Item so far without some powerful thought or physical gesture, and he didn't want to risk the pain he had felt earlier sneaking back up on him.

The result was that he went completely deaf. Other than a low ringing he could hear nothing else. Marik let off another shot, and without the noise to distract him Seto was able to take in the other's stature. Operating guns, in all honesty, was not something that Seto excelled at. He had taken lessons before, from Isono no less. He knew the drill:

_Steady hands, gun out and away, keep your eyes on the target, brace yourself for impact._

It was simply not something that he was good at. In hindsight, it made sense. Gozaboro had always been disappointed in his lack of affinity for weapons even if he had skill in developing a company and its assets.

Marik's second shot went off, and Seto could see his body absorb the impact of the discharge. The man barely move, a minute shift the only indicator that he had done anything at all.

Behind them, Bakura was still bludgeoning, beating into the bodies now, breaking them all into pieces. The action didn't shock him, for once; Seto could easily see anyone being so angry with with Walkers that, if they had the chance and ability, they would most definitely destroy the bodies themselves. Mokuba was one of those people.

Having picked off the last two walkers within the radius, Marik had stood and was speaking. Seto couldn't hear a word he said, so he strained his hearing - he did not want to be deaf for the rest of his life. The burst of sound almost unbalanced him, and he blurted out,

"I couldn't hear you," to stop Marik from continuing.

The sigh he received in response was one of annoyance, and instead Marik said. "Bakura, we're done. Let's go."

The bodies resting on the snow were mere fragments. They no longer even looked like they'd once been from something living. Bakura hadn't been able to hear them, apparently, because he was still hammering away, silent now, body struggling with each swing after so many.

"Ryou!" Marik shouted. Running over, it took him waving his arms in Bakura's sight for him to notice and falter.

Bakura's breathing was ragged, and no sooner than he had stopped he was doubled over, trying to catch his breath.

"We got all the ones around here. Now let's get back home before the wolves come after us."

"We need food," Seto pointed out. "We shouldn't return empty handed."

Picking off small things, so long as he caught them while they were still, was easy for Seto and he managed to fell a small deer on the way back. Not that it would have been difficult with his weapon; the rounds spread, and quite a large chunk of the beast's neck was missing when they got to the carcass. His was clearly not meant for hunting, but Marik had said nothing as he took the shot. Maybe Marik felt bad for him, he mused, and wanted to give him a chance to practice. The rifle that Marik's gun carried had no doubt been better suited for the job, and would he was a better shot, too.

Bakura whistled, but tied the legs of the animal together with some cord and rubbed it down with snow before dragging it along. When they reached the Blue Eyes Jet, Marik told him to grab the weapons he'd brought and take them to the compound.

"They'll be needing them," he said, so the two of them split the load.

After that, open tundra seemed quiet and suspenseful, and Seto dedicated all of his concentration to keeping his guard up around them, wishing the Walkers to stay away. The pack on his back grew warm again and Seto knew that he was accessing its magic, but they encountered nothing on the rest of the way and so there was no way to tell how effective his usage had been.

"I'm... I'm going to wash the blood off of my cloak, if you two gentlemen don't mind," Bakura said to them, when they finally came within sight of the hospital. "Please go on ahead, and I'll bring this in when I'm finished."

Bakura hadn't said a word since they'd begun their journey back, which Seto thought was unusual. This was confirmed when Marik's brows knitted and he frowned at the request.

"Ah, sure," was Marik's response.

Something was wrong.

"Ryou," Marik added. "...you weren't bitten were you?"

Seto hadn't wanted to admit that his thoughts had been running along the same pattern, but strange behavior was the first sign. No one wanted to be hunted and killed after being bitten, and no one fancied a mercy killing either.

Bakura smiled, but it looked sad. "No, but thank you for the concern. When I return you can inspect me, if you wish."

"Rather be safe than sorry, Ryou," Marik said.

"Yeah."

Inside, everyone seemed to marvel at the guns they'd brought back. Way was made for them almost immediately, and several people wondered aloud where they had all come from. A few speculated that the three of them had gone on a raid; they had the golden artifacts, after all. No one said anything to either of them, of course, and Seto had to admit that he was comforted somewhat by the warm touch of his pack. These people weren't so intimidating when he could understand what they were saying; they were reacting in the same way that he imagined Isono or the others in the Tower would.

Ishizu was up and on her feet, and although she instructed several others to disperse the weapons and ammunition, she seemed more glad to have heard that Seto had taken to the Scale.

"He was pretty good out there," Marik told her. "Still a bit rusty but he'll be fine when he goes back. I can't imagine he'll even need to use it very much."

"I'm sure I will find a use for it," Seto interjected.

Everyone in the hospital seemed to react a bit better to him upon his return. Word spread quickly that they had taken out six Walkers and that, apparently, was reason enough for some modicum of joy. Seto didn't quite see how, considering that there were certainly more where they had come from, but he had learned a long time ago that letting people think that they had reason to be happy boosted morale and helped regulate harmony within a group. It was a philosophy that he'd used to run his company at once time, and it was still useful. Several people made eye contact with him, even, and the men sleeping in his quarters with him no longer seemed to shirk his presence. It was interesting to know what difference acceptance made within a group.

After such a long trip outside, Seto slept. His dreams were still glimpses of a time long past, flashing tidbits and small scenes. Some were blurry and others were clear.

"Hey, Kaiba, get up!" someone said.

Shaking followed swiftly and Seto bolted upright, unused to being roused so roughly. He fumbled for his gun, which was near the bed. Sand-colored bangs hung over his head, and Marik laughed.

"Hold on, Mister trigger happy. Nothing's up. Dinner's on and since we're leaving tomorrow you should probably fill your stomach. Like venison?"

The evening's meal was particularly filling, Though the deer was small, heavy meat was a rarity and as Seto ate it seemed like a feast, even with smaller portions. It was tough for lack of preparation but cooked through. Even Yuugi ate quickly, and for the several minutes that they were consuming the room was completely silent. There were some canned vegetables on the sides, courtesy of Marik, and together they made quite the wonderful combination. Even at the Kaiba Tower, they hadn't had meat to eat in a couple weeks.

Bakura wasn't present, though, and that worried him.

"They're not happy," Marik said as he finished his plate. He jerked a thumb to point to the area outside. "They felt it was unfair that only we get the meat - even though they're not willing to hunt for it."

"They're good people, brother," Ishizu said, and it sounded as though she was heading off an argument.

"I gave them half of it to cut up amongst themselves. Thanks to mister trigger happy over here, about an eighth of it is missing on the neck."

Seto frowned. "You gave away half?"

"More than half, really. You see we all only have one serving. I felt like there'd be a riot otherwise. Wouldn't fucking leave me alone while I was cooking, asking when it was going to be done, how much of it was for them. I'm telling you, Shizu, you need to watch your back with this lot."

"I'm pretty sure things will be fine, Marik," Yuugi said, and that statement was followed with heavy sigh. Having finished his meal, he stood. "Ishizu, I'm going to go borrow your radio for a moment. I need to make a call back home."

"Of course."

Marik rolled his eyes. "And of course the Pharaoh slinks off. This is a problem, Ishizu."

It was Ishizu's turn to sigh. "They're just a bit upset because they haven't been informed about what's going on. Somehow four three people turn up in a jet with guns and food and clothes - they're not sure how you figured out where we are, and they don't know about the Scale. Once you all take your leave, things will settle down a bit more."

"I'm sure they would have taken the jet already if they weren't so afraid of risking the Walkers without you."

"Desperation does things to people, brother."

Seto didn't want to be caught in the middle of this argument, so he changed the subject. "Where's Bakura? Did he eat?"

"He is not feeling well," Ishizu replied. "I personally checked him for bites myself, because Marik was worried, but he is fine and unharmed. I am more worried for Yuugi at this juncture than I am Ryou. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a few things to attend to."

Having given up on being told anything about this group in a straightforward manner, Seto decided he'd pack his things up and be ready to leave. He needed more sleep, anyway. Despite their indirect way of communicating, their protection of other people's information, Seto would not complain; as much as they had kept from him, he realized, he had shared with him - and as Yuugi had pointed out the night before, none of them had been inclined to considering his earlier attitude about their Items and their missions. It seemed that a whole drama had unfolded between all of them, just under his nose. If anyone had been prying into his life with Mokuba, he would have reacted the same way - after all, where had all of the care and concern been when they had been abandoned children at an orphanage?

"Stay," Marik said quietly. "I need to talk to you."

Although she sent them a concerned glance, Ishizu did not stop her stride, thanking her brother for being so kind as the prepare the meat for them.

Marik waited until the door had closed behind her before speaking. "We got some pretty bad news earlier," he said.

Wracking his brain for a list of things that could have gone wrong, Seto tried his best to make a guess. "Does it have to do with Bakura?" Even though he had been free of Walker bites the fact of the matter was that something about the man was ...unhinged. Seto wouldn't be surprised if he had snapped; the look on his face while he had been smashing those corpses into pieces had been unnerving, and his other tendencies seemed to point in that direction as well.

"No, Ryou is just... like that. There was some times when he gets so _angry_ about everything that he's been put through, he just... the crack grows a little wider, I think. He sort of loses himself. It's sweet that you cared enough to ask, though."

Scowling, Seto retorted, "It's not that I care - I just need to know whether or not he's safe to have around. I'm not going to endanger myself just because he has an Item. He doesn't get special treatment."

The chuckle that he received in response seemed cold. "He does, though. You can say that all you want, but I don't see you subjecting yourself to running around the continent helping innocent people. Fact is, Ryou is more experienced than all of us. He can _control_ the bodies when he wants. He knows about weapons, and he fights those monsters on a daily basis. He is valuable, and just because he's got a few problems doesn't make that untrue. Look, I'm not trying to start an argument with you, Kaiba. That's not what I wanted to talk to you about."

Holding his tongue from further argument on the state of Bakura's psyche, Seto remained quiet.

"Shizu had a vision earlier, before we left this morning. Yuugi's people... they're... they're going to turn on him when he comes back."

That... that was a very large problem indeed.

"Right now his friends are safe because they don't really know, but when he returns and they all come back, hacking spree for all. And he has a lot of people. He can't fight them."

Thoughts of Bakura couldn't have been the furthest away from his mind at the moment. "That is the stupidest thing they could ever do." There was no sense in asking why, because people were stupid and they all did stupid things.

"They think that if they take the Puzzle they can work it on its own." Marik sighed. "As you can tell, this puts Yuugi in a difficult predicament; he's the only one in the States with an Item that he knows of, so he has to go back there. But his friends don't have an Item, so they can't tell him anything about what's really happening. In fact, they're going to have difficulties just getting back to the rendezvous point. That's why Yuugi had been by himself when you picked him too. Too dangerous for anyone else to get back."

Seto nodded. "And if he sends them a message through the radio saying that he knows about it, they'll probably kill everyone. Fucking Americans."

"I owe Yuugi my life, I'm afraid, so I can't let things happen this way."

Another piece of the drama, left there in the open for him to speculate. "And how did that happen?"

"You were there at the tournament, weren't you?" Frustrated, Marik pounded his fists on the table. "You don't pay attention to anything, do you?"

Seto wasn't about to be insulted for his lack of tolerance for what he had felt was nonsense. "I don't pay attention to what I think isn't important."

"Nevermind that, Kaiba." Marik gnashed his teeth, almost like a snarling dog. "I'm not leaving Yuugi out there to die and that's all you need to know. So I need you to work with me."

"Fine." There had been no hesitation. Yuugi had been one of the only people to stand up to him, and even now he was looking out for others when he didn't have to, putting himself out there. Seto had been nearly distraught once he had realized that Yuugi wasn't in Japan, and it didn't seem fair to throw that away by delivering him to his death. "What do you have in mind?"

"Bakura's never been to the States. I suggest we drop him and Yuugi off, Ryou will go get Yuugi's friends and bring them to a rendezvous point and they can deal with it that way."

Of all of the ideas that Marik had ever had, this was the most asinine; and they had earlier simply walked into a den of Walkers. "You want to send Yuugi away from his home with _nothing_ and leave him be?"

"He'll have your weapons. He can arm his friends, and Bakura is an expert hunter. It's the only thing I can think of that wouldn't be ...unsavory, like my first idea. Ishizu didn't like it very much."

Seto knew he was going to regret asking, "_What_ was your first idea?"

"That we have Ryou throw a couple of grenades at the building and you blow it up with your jet shooters."

He laughed because there was no other response that he could think of. "You're kidding me. Marik, you cannot be serious."

"I'd shoot every one of them if I had the ammo. I hate snakes like them, taking advantage of people just because they can't get what they want themselves. I say give Yuugi a clean start. There's got to be other people who need help. Why should he waste his talents on idiots?"

He made a good point, Seto reasoned, but that plan had been absolutely ridiculous. "We can't go around killing everyone. There are few enough people left on the planet, I'd guess. Sometimes, I really wonder if you think things through."

"You can laugh all you want. I've thought this through," Marik returned. "Many of the people who are still here don't deserve to be. Lots of them raped and killed before coming to us, acting all innocent because they need food and shelter. I don't tolerate that, not where I live. If someone questions my authority I shoot them, point blank. I don't have time for that sort of uprising. Too many deserving men and women work hard to stay alive for themselves and for their families. I don't take kindly to questioning."

Seto cleared his throat. "You're serious."

"Very."

Looking away, he muttered, "I can see why you're called the Scourge..."

Marik's expression showed pride rather than shame. "This is serious, Kaiba. I've never known you to joke around."

"I don't think that killing people is the way to go on this."

"If anyone lays a hand on Yuugi, they're forfeit. We're the only chance this world has of surviving - any real chance, anyway. Those are the rules." There was a pause before he continued. "Regardless, you aren't the only one to take that stance. Ishizu disagrees with me as well, which is why my plan is to send Ryou with him. There's no real alternative, and even that's risky. You've already proven, Kaiba, that we can change her visions. But we can't send him back there if we're going to do this. Being on their own is their best shot."

Compared to the first idea, Seto thought to himself, this idea did seem more... plausible. "And that's it. I'm just supposed to drop Bakura off and hope for the best?"

"You can't be at risk, so it's the best we can do. He's got an Item and he can keep the Walkers away - or sic them on Yuugi's group if they try anything too violent. He can go in there, ask for Yuugi's friends, and let them know that he's injured or something and he needs help carrying them back. They go with him and are never seen again, preferably with minimal supplies. His group thinks he's dead; Yuugi doesn't die. When they get there, Yuugi has weapons and Ryou has utility stuff. He travels with them until they find a new place to stay, and Ryou does what he's always wanted, taking out a few Walkers in the Americas. Seems like a win-win to me."

"...I could just take them with me." It was not a suggestion that Seto wanted to make, but it would be safer than allowing them to walk in the wilderness. "They could come back to Japan with me."

Marik shook his head. "He needs to be there. I talked to him. He's not willing to go with you. I tried that option already. It would save you fuel, really, in the long run. But I have to go back home and he doesn't want to go too far from where he was."

This situation was daunting at best.

"So you're in, right?"

Crossing his arms, Seto frowned. "I have to head in that direction anyway. If dropping off Bakura is all I have to do... I can't say no, can I? Wasn't that the plan anyway?"

Marik smiled in response. "You know, you're not as bad as you used to be."

"Sure." Coming from Marik, Seto wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a compliment or not.

"You've got the Item now, and... well, you're doing good. I think you'll do good with it."

Seto wasn't going to allow himself to be promised to anything other than what he planned. "I'll protect my people with it," he corrected. "I'm not Bakura. I don't want to be."

Sighing, Marik stretched himself out over the cold, silver table. "No one wants to be Ryou. He's gone through a lot. He's got a lot of pent up... everything."

Silence drifted between them for a while, and then Marik spoke again. "When you get home, Kaiba... you should let your brother take a whack at a Walker or two. From a distance. With a gun." Seto did not like being told what to do, especially when it came to his brother, and Marik appeared to see the rousing anger. "I know it's dangerous, and I know it's not right, but when you trap an attack dog in a cage and starve it, if he ever gets out... he becomes Ryou."

_He'll never be like Bakura_.

"I'll be honest with you. This outbreak, disease, whatever it is, it's been the best thing that's ever happened to Ryou. He's never been in charge of his life. People have always been making decisions for him. He fought back and was defeated. Even in times where he managed to do something he wanted to do he was quickly suppressed. He has a lot of pent up issues about his family and his life, and no outlet for them. Now he has lots of outlets. Hundreds, thousands. It's easy to say that he's crazy, but there's more to it than that. He's a fighter that finally _can fight_.

"I get it. Mokuba hasn't really fought anything. I can tell because you haven't either. You don't kill things, Kaiba. It's not in your nature. You ridicule and dominate and lead, because you can, but you're not a 'get your hands dirty' kind of person, and it's unlikely that Mokuba is either. But you never know, and he'll never know until he gets a chance to. If he's like Ryou, and he's a natural, he's going to hate you for the rest of his life and everything he attacks will have your face, because you held him back. That's not something you. I don't know what Ryou saw when he beat the shit out of those corpses, but I wouldn't want it to be me. See what I mean? I know, because I used to be like that. I almost lost my mind because of it."

That logic made sense, and Seto had considered it. But the fact was, at the end of the day, Mokuba's life was worth more than the world to him. "And what do I do if he goes out there to his death, then? You're working so hard to keep Yuugi alive - why can't I do the same for my brother? Since you have all the answers, I figured I'd ask." His voice emerged much more sarcastic than he had intended. It was a genuine question.

Curiosity killed the cat, as the English phrase went.

"I figured you'd ask that. I'm not saying to let the kid throw himself out there into a pack of monsters. I'm just saying that he won't know if he likes killing them if he doesn't get to do it. The fact is, not everyone - even with experience with shooting - can handle seeing them. They stink like death and decay and sometimes you fight monsters that used to be people you love. Look, I'll indulge you. If the kid dies, then he dies. That's not something you can stop, Kaiba. Not even the Items can stop that. You're being a baby."

"...did you just call me a baby?"

"...yep."

The silence settled between them, and Seto tucked Marik's words away for later. He couldn't handle having a sleepless night. He'd be flying all day tomorrow.

"There's another thing I need to tell you about the Items," Marik said. "You can use them to attract the Walkers, too."

Scoffing, Seto asked, "Why would anyone want to do that?"

"Ask Ryou. He uses it all the time. He calls the Walkers away from other people to make them follow him instead. Helps relieve people running low on supplies or ammunition. Makes it safer to hunt in some places. It's actually the easiest ability for the Items. They have a rather... dark history." Glancing at Seto, he paused. "Right. You hate the vagueness. Sorry. These Items were made by sacrificing a village a long time ago. It's only natural that they have that ability."

"I'll never understand how all of you can just so easily accept all of this information. Don't you people question anything? Is there anything that you won't believe?"

"Yeah..." Marik made sure that they shared eye contact before continuing. "I didn't want to believe that you could be nice. I didn't think that you'd have the heart to take care of anyone."

Seto narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"You're just a dick, Kaiba. You've always been. You put down everyone who can't stand up to you, even if they're just not meant to be great. Not everyone is meant to be great. I thought that when Ishizu contacted you, you and Mokuba would just be alone in your Tower, watching everyone else get sick and die."

Oddly enough, that bit of honesty wasn't so hurtful. It was how everyone tended to see him after all. He pushed people to be great because he wanted to find people who were. Everyone could be great if they tried. It wasn't only money that made Seto Kaiba great - he was intelligent and resourceful, and willing to make the sacrifices that it took to keep himself elevated. Everyone had choices, but not everyone made them.

"Everyone can be great," he said.

"No, they can't," Marik argued. "I know because I'm one of those people. I'm connected to the Items, but you know how? I'm the guardian. I look after them until whoever is supposed to come and get them comes and get them and saves the world. No one remembers the guardian. Legends aren't written about him. You've seen it, tattooed on my back. That's the legend of the Items. I'm not in it. I'm not important. I just carry the story. I don't duel. I don't win. The Pharaoh does, the Evil spirit does. You were one of the priests; you were great. So was Ishizu. But me? I'm just a younger brother. I don't get to do anything other than wait. Not everyone has that destiny. Not everyone is a hero."

That was a bunch of crap, and Seto had been battling that mentality since he was young. "You can do whatever you want. You just have to work for it."

"Really? So what about Mokuba? He's never run a company. He didn't build KaibaCorp. He knows about it, but he didn't do it. Everyone has their place, Kaiba. If we were all winners there would be no one to govern. Think about it. Why do you have this Item, and not Mokuba?"

There was one thing in that spiel that he hadn't been certain of, and Seto ignored the rest. "Priest?" he said.

"I don't know how to sum this up for you. You were a Priest. You helped the Pharaoh win. You used to have the Rod, but now I have it."

"That doesn't make sense."

"Pay attention to the dreams. Once you can use the Item well enough you'll remember them better." Marik pushed his chair out from the table. "We should sleep. We've got a big day ahead of us tomorrow. At least one of us was convinced of something they didn't believe during this trip, right?" It didn't sound like Marik wanted to talk any further.

"Yeah... I guess so."

It was unlikely that any of them would see each other again after tonight, but Seto couldn't think of another way to depart. He wasn't one for tearful goodbyes, and in all honesty he thought they were a waste of time. Everyone who had called him here had done what they could to give him a chance, give him some luck, even when they hadn't had any of their own. Sure, the explanations had been vague but, even with his conversation with Marik as an example, they were doing what they considered their best. Seto's argument against their double talk, back when they duelled, was that they couldn't show him proof. Now there was nothing but, and it would have been foolish for him to at this point perceive the Items' abilities as anything else.

Scourge or not, Marik was knowledgeable, and although he was much more rough than Seto would have preferred, he had done more than enough to earn approval: He'd been level-headed in combat, patient (enough) to actually impart some instruction, and even when his plans seemed outrageous seemed to contain at least a little thought into them. Extreme times often called for extreme measures, and although he didn't want to admit it Marik seemed like the sort of person to excel in this environment, in the same way, he guessed, that Bakura had been able to survive thus far.

His body buzzed with anticipation, and sleep was difficult to find. But he would make sure that he at his best tomorrow, better than the rest of them. He had the Item, and he had the others; Marik had said at least one thing that he agreed with that evening: they were the world's only real hope of getting through this mess, and as much as he wanted to boast about himself, that included Yuugi - and Bakura, too.

Kaiba never failed, and they wouldn't either.

* * *

Kudos to you if you were able to make it through! I hope you enjoyed it.


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